May Balls-Ups At Sidney, Christ’s And Trinity

Queues, the 4am lull and champagne headaches are a given, but some balls this May Week have been beset by problems other than the usual May Ball gripes.

Among the May Week blunders:

– Sidney Sussex’s main stage collapsed
– Christ’s was plunged into darkness
– Trinity banished German band, Dancing Pigeons, from the stage after three songs due to noise restrictions
– Allegations of homophobia at Tit Hall June Event

 

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Starting with last night‘s calamities, at Sidney Sussex’s ‘La Serenissima’ May Ball, the main stage collapsed, The Tab can exclusively reveal.

The incident reportedly happened after Welsh 'rappers' Goldie Lookin’ Chain played an energetic set and encouraged a little too much audience participation.

They invited ball-goers to get on stage with them, but apparently they ‘moshed’ a little too eagerly when they were up there, causing the stage to collapse and putting an end to the evening’s main stage ents.

A Tab source, who was working at the ball, explained: ‘Goldie Lookin’ Chain encouraged people to get on the stage with them, a bunch of them jumped up, and then the main stage collapsed so no more ents could play it. Bad times.’

Goldie Lookin' Chain performed at Sidney last night

But representatives from the Sidney Sussex May Ball committee seemed unperturbed. President, Denver Sheridan said:

‘I think the main thing to say is: great show from Goldie Lookin’ Chain, shame it collapsed the stage, but we had plenty of other ents elsewhere, and a small canal to keep people occupied.

“Plus we had already had three of our amazing acts.”

But Toploader, of Dancing In The Moonlight – and not much else – fame were unable to play their planned set.

At Christ’s May Ball, ’L’Esprit Nouveau’, on Tuesday night, the ball was plunged into darkness.

A Tab insider at the ball claimed that it lasted twenty minutes and resulted in one of the DJ acts being unable to perform his planned set on time, but Christ’s May Ball President, Brendan Laing, insisted that this was not the case:

“There was a brief power failure in an isolated area of the ball. It lasted a maximum of ten minutes and all ents went ahead as planned.”

Some of Christ's exciting attractions

At Trinity May Ball Hamburg-based band Dancing Pigeons were forcibly removed by security after only three songs.

The pretext? That they were violating noise restrictions.

Trinity were no doubt concerned about what happened at Jesus last year, when the entire ball was called off an hour early due to complaints about excessive noise.

But, The Tab can reveal that Dancing Pigeons were denied their sound check earlier that day, which could have prevented the issue.

Korlin Bruhn, a New Hall third year who attended the ball and knows the band, explained: Their sound check was scheduled for 5.30pm on Monday, so they started to make their way to Cambridge on Sunday, having to spend a night at a hotel in Calais before taking an early ferry so that they could arrive at Trinity in plenty of time.

“However, the sound check never happened – apparently one of the other bands had been late so that's why the Dancing Pigeons and one other band did not get to have their sound check.”

By all accounts, the band was comparatively neglected: in the lavish extravagance of Trinity May Ball, they weren’t even offered a hot meal, just sandwiches and crisps, water and other picnic array.

Describing the circumstance itself, Bruhn said:

“After merely three songs however (might have been two and a half), members of the ball committee came on stage and talked to the drummer, who listened and then looked incredulous.

“After another short exchange he started laughing. He then announced that they wanted them to stop playing.

“The crowd erupted in chants of ,“Let them play! Let them play!”.

But when the band briefly attempted to resume playing, security bouncers came on stage, making it clear they would be removed forcibly.

Reportedly, after the band was shut down, there was talk of them only being paid half of what had been put down in the contract, despite it not being their fault that their soundcheck did not happen.

At the time of going to press, those we contacted on the Trinity May Ball committee had declined to comment.

And at Tit Hall's lower budget event last night, there were reported incidents of homophobia.

A Tab insider explained that the June Event committee were enforcing a "mixed couples only" rule on the popular swings attraction.

Reportedly, there were complaints, but the rule was enforced staunchly all night; which would be violating gay rights legislation. Read the full story here.

 

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With revellers running out of events as May Week winds down, lets hope that the remaining events – Homerton tonight, Wolfson and St Edmund’s tomorrow – will run without a hitch, a collapsed stage, a power failure or noise fascists.