Pipping Big D’s theme and artist announcement to the post by a matter of hours, YUSU has released the first two acts to play at the Summer Ball.
In a video blog, YUSU Democracy & Services Officer Dan Walker announced that Dionne Bromfield and Darwin Deez are both to play at the Ball, though headline performers are yet to be announced. Bromfield, described by Walker as “rapidly rising to prominence,” with a “very, very intense vocal style which is quite unique, quite impressive,” is best-known for her 2009 single ‘Yeah Right’ which peaked at number 36 in the UK Singles Chart. She is signed to Amy Winehouse’s Lioness record label.
American indie band Darwin Deez are “known for an absolutely great live performance and their debut album hit number 3 in the UK indie charts recently,” said Walker in the announcement.
Expressing her dissatisfaction with the decision, second-year History of Art student Annalise Watts said that, “York gets the worst acts ever!
“I don’t even know who they are. I wish I went to Birmingham or Manchester instead!”
It remains to be seen who the Summer Ball’s main act will be, and whether or not they can stand up to Big D ticket sales – which go on general release on Wednesday. The annual Big D event, organised by Derwent College JCRC, sold out last year in a matter of hours, despite an internal server crash when tickets were released. The act and theme of the event will be released at a launch party this evening.
Contrastingly, previous Freshers’ and Summer Balls have struggled to sell out in past years, often blamed on a tendency for headlining acts to not show up to the event, and dissatisfaction with the Racecourse venue. These have included N-Dubz and Wiley. Nonetheless, Walker’s redesigned Freshers’ Ball, the Big Bang, sold-out in the Autumn Term, with headliner Marina and the Diamonds successfully performing to a packed-out Central Hall.
The Big Bang was met with controversy, however, when students complained it was unclear on ticket purchase that not all ticket holders would be able to see the headline act. Other entertainment was provided in college bars.
The annual Ball is this year to be held on Wednesday of Week 9, and is traditionally held at the York Racecourse, with coaches transporting students from campus. Two ticket options are available, the more expensive including a champagne reception, dinner and early-bird entertainment. A discounted early-bird rate ticket was released over the Easter holidays, with over 270 of these still unsold at the time of writing.
News of the headline act for the Summer Ball is expected to be released next week.
“known for an absolutely live performance and their debut album hit number 3 in the UK indie charts recently”
Did Dan Walker actually say this or have you missed out a word?
I was about to buy a ticket, then I heard Annalise Watts thought it was shit so I decided not to.
Pointless quote.
Also, reasonable acts these two – Bromfield has had some success this year, not sure about the other bloke. Hopefully the other two are decent.
Annalise Watts can fuck off and go to Manchester or Brum then. Nothing stopping her.
Despite the dramatic phrasing of Annalise’s statement, it is true. I haven’t heard of either act, which clearly doesn’t define whether they are good or not, but the facts are undeniable: Dionne Bromfield’s peak chart success was 36 and Darwin Deez’s was 62 – both in 2009.
Hopefully the headline act will make up for this or it will really be overshadowed by Big D.
You still haven’t changed the mistake from a few days ago. There are parts of the article that don’t make sense
@Bob Fossil,
Have updated that mistake you pointed out – thank you for that. Anything else you wanted to draw my attention to? (You say that there are ‘parts of the article that don’t make sense’)
Not sure what fossil meant, but the following is pretty unclear:
“Two ticket options are available, the more expensive including a champagne reception, dinner and early-bird entertainment.”
There’s the Graduation dinner ticket. It gives you early access to the event, funfair etc after the meal is over.
There’s no ‘early bird entertainment’ as such. The early bird ticket is a limited offer which dropped the ticket price of the event by £10 from last year. When the offer is over on Monday (evening only early bird tickets are now sold out) both parts of the ball will be £5 and £7 cheaper than last year.
We’ve done this without compromising the event budget at all and in the face of VAT increases which push all our costs up. We’ve done this because in our Summer Ball survey in spring students told us that the one thing they wanted most from this year’s ball was cheaper tickets.
Interesting that this failed to make it into the article.
I’d also say that we chose our acts based on the desire from students for a variety of genres of music and the current exposure of said artists with both Dionne and Darwin have been getting a lot of play time on Radio one over the past months, and while Another Normal Human points out that their chart peaks have been moderately low I’d say that’s what you get with a more up and coming set of acts.
Also to be fair unless you go for a huge name (way out of the York budget and or if we book a group of blatant f****wits like N Dubz they won’t bother coming anyway), settle for having just one act at the ball, or get someone who’s relatively washed up, we will always struggle to be able to get an someone everyones heard of to come and play the kind of full live set we feel students at the ball deserve (as opposed to a DJ set where a band member comes along with an ipod).
As a quick comparison with other Unis Darwin Deez is third on the Leeds lineup, which is famed for massive summer ball acts and usually has a much bigger budget to play with! It’s a shame Vision only interviewed one person about the acts and that person didn’t know who they were, however I’d comment that at the end of the day acts are only part of the Summer Ball.
That being said keep your eye’s peeled for the next two acts!
See you on the Dodgems,
Walker
x
Not sure what fossil meant, but the following is pretty unclear:
“Two ticket options are available, the more expensive including a champagne reception, dinner and early-bird entertainment.”
There’s the Graduation dinner ticket. It gives you early access to the event, funfair etc after the meal is over.
There’s no ‘early bird entertainment’ as such. The early bird ticket is a limited offer which dropped the ticket price of the event by £10 from last year. When the offer is over on Monday (evening only early bird tickets are now sold out) both parts of the ball will be £5 and £7 cheaper than last year.
We’ve done this without compromising the event budget at all and in the face of VAT increases which push all our costs up. We’ve done this because in our Summer Ball survey in spring students told us that the one thing they wanted most from this year’s ball was cheaper tickets.
Interesting that this failed to make it into the article.
I’d also say that we chose our acts based on the desire from students for a variety of genres of music and the current exposure of said artists with both Dionne and Darwin have been getting a lot of play time on Radio one over the past months, and while Another Normal Human points out that their chart peaks have been moderately low I’d say that’s what you get with a more up and coming set of acts.
Also to be fair unless you go for a huge name (way out of the York budget and or if we book a group of blatant f****wits like N Dubz they won’t bother coming anyway), settle for having just one act at the ball, or get someone who’s relatively washed up, we will always struggle to be able to get an someone everyones heard of to come and play the kind of full live set we feel students at the ball deserve (as opposed to a DJ set where a band member comes along with an ipod).
As a quick comparison with other Unis Darwin Deez is third on the Leeds lineup, which is famed for massive summer ball acts and usually has a much bigger budget to play with! It’s a shame Vision only interviewed one person about the acts and that person didn’t know who they were, however I’d comment that at the end of the day acts are only part of the Summer Ball.
That being said keep your eye’s peeled for the next two acts! It’s nice to see that we’ve gone in a bit of a different direction to Big D with our headliner and got something that probrably breaks the mould of previous years.
See you on the Dodgems,
Walker
x