Beach Break 2013: AU chucks away FREE money

Beach Break Live 2013 is set to be bigger and better than ever, relocated to Newquay and more acts than one night stands  in a week of Jesters Mondays. You may have already seen some of their reps around halls and campus advertising the festival, but for one reason or another the AU and SUSU decided that they didn’t want up to £3,000 for free.

Beach Break Live put together an incredible and flexible deal together for the AU and its clubs, offering numerous free tickets, bar tabs and commision on sales straight back to the AU centrally and the clubs themselves. The proposal came to AU Committee and it was decided we were basically chucking away free money if we didn’t do something with the festival company. Since then though, it seems that the AU and SUSU didn’t want an estimated 3 grand for basically nothing.

The AU would have been asked to do some hard stuff like send out the odd email or Facebook post, maybe even something on the SUSU website, maybe it could have replaced ‘Fiddlesticks…’. Some parts of the deal were not quite as acceptable, but the Beach Break Live manager for this area (a former Soton student and member of the AUC) was quite happy to negotiate knowing that they had asked for a lot more than what they expected to get.  Since Beach Break came to meet the AUC in February, they’ve only had 1 email in response from the Sabb Office and SUSU (lack of communication ring a bell, anyone?) who I’m guessing must not want this free money.

The deal could have been in place this year without any commitment required to sign up for further years. Currently SUSU does not have any promotional deals that would conflict with Beach Break, so for the this year there appeared to be no problem. They are however looking into choosing a ‘preferred supplier’, with Outgoing already quoting (and happy for any Beach Break deal) and for a long time have also been waiting on I Love Tour. As such, no contract will be in place until next year.

Luckily for us, Beach Break has not given up on the students and the deals they were offering the AU clubs are still available, so just the AU misses out. Southampton is normally one of their biggest sellers, and based on previous years, the 3 grand would have been easily ‘earned’ by the AU. The Surf club, who have already started selling, look easily set to earn a couple of hundred quid and a bar tab for the club, and the same offer is available for any other club interested.

Beach Break will certainly have a presence on campus and halls, even if SUSU don’t want them, and if you’re lucky enough to be pre drinking when they come round, some free tequila is probably going to be your next beverage. So if you fancy making some money for your club and having an epic 4 days, get involved now!

(Other festivals are available for your students loans to be spent on)

We’re offering you a chance to have the summer of your life!

All you have to do to win yourself a pair of tickets to the festival that pulls out all the stops is just answer this question:

Who won this year’s surf world championship? Was it:

• A)    Joel Parkinson
• B)    David Milliband
• C)    David Cameron

Simply e-mail the answer to [email protected] with your name and phone number. Entries MUST be made from your University e-mail address so we know you’re a student. Read the terms and conditions here