THE RECENTLY cancelled University College Dublin ball will now take place two days later than originally planned after the students’ union reached an agreement with university authorities.
Traditionally held on the last day of term, the ball was originally scheduled for Holy Thursday, April 21st. However, following a dispute with university authorities over access to the campus, the students’ union cancelled the event.
The dispute centred on the event licence required to hold the ball. It stated that the entirety of the Belfield campus needed to be shut to non-event traffic due to health and safety concerns.
For a variety of reasons, including academic concerns, university authorities did not want the campus closed on that date, which was still an official day of term.
News of the cancellation sparked a large “Save Our Ball” campaign by students and alumni which led to renewed discussions with university authorities.
Under an agreement reached earlier this week, the ball will now take place on Saturday 23rd, two days later than perviously planned. Tickets for the revised event are on sale from noon today.
Billed last year as “Europe’s largest private party” the expected attendance for 2011 had been 8,000 but will now be 4,999 in order to avoid the need to obtain a new event licence.
On a health and safety basis, however, the campus will be closed as stipulated in the original event licence.
It is not yet known if the organisers of the ball will be able to secure the original band line-up, which had included the Republic of Loose, Iyaz, Fight Like Apes and O Emperor. A students’ union spokesman yesterday said the exact line-up would not be known until early next week.