SUSU have provided a cost breakdown of the Grad Ball

Let’s see where that £50 you’re forking out is going shall we. 

After numerous complaints and requests, Union President, David Mendoza-Wolfson, has provided a breakdown of the money spent on this year’s Grad Ball at Oceana.

Over £100,000 has already been spent on the event.

• £78,000 on acts
• £4500 on the fair ground
• £3000 for staff and technical equipment
• £5000 for the car-parking hire from the landlords
• £6000 on decor

One notable thing missing from this list is the actual cost of hiring Oceana.

It is no secret that many final years are not happy with the acts that have been chosen for this year, and, without a Grad Ball committee, we were wondering where on earth these decisions came from. Well, David can’t back up all the choices but claims that:

This year, we also carried out a poll for the Athletic Union Ball act, Basshunter came out second in the poll, and even though he wasn’t available for the AU Ball, we managed to secure him for Grad Ball instead.

Although there is no breakdown of the cost of the acts, we did some investigating and found out that Labrinth’s minimum hire fee for an event like this is $100,000.

David claims that SUSU aim to break even from the event and if any extra tickets are sold then the money will go into their “most important work” including student groups, campaigns, the Advice Centre “and so much more”.

In the blog, Mendoza-Wolfson also apologises for the lack of Grad Ball Committee this year and is looking into ensuring that this “oversight” doesn’t happen again.

We asked David to confirm or deny the rumour that all sabbs, student leaders and trustees get free VIP tickets to the Grad Ball, with the sabbs also getting a plus one free of charge. We also asked if it is true that all the staff and sabbs from the past five years get invited.

He told us:

As a thank you, the Chief Executive and Union President jointly host a reception for our core staff, student leaders, trustees and Union Councillors before the Grad Ball. This is completely funded from a separate budget and nothing from the ticket sales go towards this reception or invites.

We then asked “Just to clarify though, does anyone actually get free tickets to the grad ball?”  To which David responded:

The reception includes entry to Grad Ball

Due to the controversy surrounding the ball, David has said that he’ll be in The Bridge tomorrow from 3pm for a Q&A session to answer student’s questions. More information about this can be found here.

Does this make you feel better about the price of your ticket? Let us know in the comments!