Aberystywth May Ball 2012

Aberystwyth May Ball is an odd one. Whilst it's certainly not worth the £40 ticket it's without doubt the best night of the year. But in comparison of other university balls, it's pretty substandard. Most Uni's attract big name acts such as Florence and the Machine, whereas the best we get are the Hoosiers, great in their hey day, but their hey day was 5 years ago. We were also expected to be impressed with Toploader, who's one greatest hit dancing in the moonlight was released well over a decade ago, if not two. It's not something i'm ringing home to brag about. Zane Lowe was surprisingly good, a mich bigger improvement on Westwood, who we were subjected to two years before. But I still wouldn't pay £40 to see him.

My dress from Jack Wills clutch from Spain, Emma's from French Connection, Shoes from Faith.

Photography done by our wonderful bestie Eiry Bateman.

I'm not sure why we bother spending most of the day preening and trying to make ourselves look good, most of the ball is outside and by the time I get off the coach I inevitable look like i've been dragged through a hedge backwards. But still, it gives us something to get excited about. Aber isn't the sort of place where you have to dress up for a night out. There's often girls on the dance floor in flats, jeans and tee shirts. You can even wear trainers on the dancefloor. So the chance to properly dress up is something we relish. Some people go all out and wear proper ball gowns, but we decided to go for slightly more casual formal wear, so that we could enjoy the rides and not ruin our dresses by dragging them through the mud. It is lush that all the boys wear suits though! ;) 

Staying Classy and hiding Gin up Stan's Dress.

The coach journey to Pontrhydfendigaid is a horror, First year I was unfortunate enough to be slightly travel sick, on my boyfriends suit... Needless to say this year my omnibenevolent friends made me sit opposite them rather than sit with me in case my upchuck reflexes went into over drive. So I ended up sitting next to some guy from Luton (being a Wrexham fc fan this was not a good thing and I spent most of the journey chastising him) whilst drinking gin that had been cleverly hidden in Emma's pants. It was a sure sign that things were going to stay classy.

No one would sit with me because of my travel sickness, ended up next to a Luton fan (BOO)

2 Shots for one token!

The drinks were heavily over priced. £10 for 4 drinks tokens. a Jug of pimms was 6 tokes (although 2 were just for a deposit). I ended up on the shots all night as you could purchase 2 sourz for 1 token. It wasn't a particularly messy night by our standards. Despite the copious amount of beverages consumed. The freezing weather was probably to blame! Sub zero temperatures will sober anyone up, have you ever seen a drunk eskimo? I rest my case.

Extortionately priced jug of pimms, extra strawbs ofc.

Luckily for us we have Stan, as she works for the union she seems to know just about everyone and she pulls some strings to get us extra strawbs in our pimms. Everyone loves Strawberries. 

The rides were all free. All four of them. And being an adreneline junkie I was more than happy to spend the warmest (yet still freezing) part of the night on the rides. Poor Ruth ended up being a bag donkey and watching us go round and round as she does not share our love for rides. We did take her on the dodgems and convinced her to come on the twister, which was a beautiful moment for me, not so much for her... I probably shouldn't have laughed the whole time when she was so terrified. I'll use this as a chance to profusely apologies for being so inconsiderate. Crying with laughter at your terrified friend is a horrible thing to do. But it was so funny. 

Headphone discoing

The layout of may ball is; there is one main building for all the "massive acts", a few rides and a few tents. Inside the tents are various bars hosting tribute acts, commedy shows, acoustic music and a headphone disco. Head phone discos are one of my favourite things, you can chose whether to listen to station A or B, so half of the room will be listening to ace of spades and the other half call me maybe. The awkward moment is when you and your friend are singing at each other only to realise you are singing completely different songs. Without a doubt the headphone disco is the saving grace of the mayball. Most of us aren't insterested in seeing the massive "acts" and would much prefer having a laugh at something like this. Perhaps the uni should invest in more tent attractions next year instead of ms dynamite (boring). Just not a foam party tent. I hate foam parties. on account of me being small and easily lost among the foamy horror. 

Headphone disco, Emma probably listening to beyonce whilst i'm on the tennacious d. 

Having our feet nibbled.

Not everything was included in the price. Things like the oxygen tank (A legal high) and the fish spa were optional extras that proved rather costly. Having always wanted to have fish nibble the dead skin from the feet I paid the £5 per person for 4 minutes (yes more than a pound a minute). Although really, we're doing the fish a favour by feeding them, they're getting a free all you can eat buffet down there. It was the strangest sensation ever. A very dull tickle with the occasional wee fish that gets carried away on your ankle or between your toes. I was slightly horrified to hear these were the baby fishes and in the shop they have much bigger ones to nibble you with. It was a nice experience though! 

 

So was it worth it? Of course, this was our last chance to have a night out together before the horror of exams set in. Sadly not all of our friends came but it was still lovely to get out of aberystwyth, even if Pontrhydfendigaid is basically a field in the middle of no where. I was getting so tired of the aber bubble. with its two night clubs and bog standards bars. The chance to dress up and do something different was something to jump at. I couldn't understand why some people were leaving early to go to Yoko's. you can go to that dive any day!  The weather was the biggest let down, I think we nearly froze to death but that can't be helped. A better array of food would be appreciated, we were limited to the choice of general burger vans or starvation. I'm thinking a hog roast or a sushi bar would have been a great success!  And we clearly need to attract bigger names, we deserve better than that! 

Would like to use this chance to thank our bestie Eiry for her lovely photography at the beginning of the night. Her photography proves you can polish a turd provided you have an SLR camera!  x