By Mateo Szlapek-Sewillo. Graphics by Daniel Brookes and Jeff Glue (respectively)

March 20, 2010. Election day. O’Ball day. I vote above the line and head to work. Thoughts then turn to the evening. My legs are weary, but my mind is buzzing. After all, it’s my first time. I don’t really know what to expect. I scurry onto campus and vault – kind of – over the balustrade into the On Dit office to retrieve my ticket, which I find lying on the desk. I hear the strains of Cloud Control in the background. Full of expectation, I rush up the stairs, around the corner into the Cloisters, to find… pretty much no one. Oh. Huh. What a let-down.
O’Ball is sick, you know. I couldn’t guess it from standing around, bewildered at the vast expanses of empty space around me, but after years of being run in a commercially untenable manner, one of the Adelaide University Union’s (AUU) flagship events risks ruin, which in turn poses problems for the finances and credibility of the AUU itself.
There exist fundamental problems at all levels of O’Ball’s organisation and marketing. They begin with the most trivial, frustrating one imaginable for O’Ball organisers and the AUU: the event’s name. For those who don’t know, O’Ball is a rock concert – one that has, in times when money was far less of an object, been graced by the likes of Eskimo Joe and Sarah Blasko. Yet people still mistake its intentions. Often, it’s mistaken for a tuxedo and cocktail dress ‘ball’, presumably complete with schmaltzy string quartet. It’s a source of much consternation for Jonathan Brown, one of three O’Ball student directors. “I would have heard hundreds of people across the campus asking the question, ‘what do I wear? Should I come in a dress or something?’” Frustrating, and laughable though it undoubtedly is, this presents a very real problem for the AUU in its efforts to publicise the event, and has done for many years. The solution, Brown says, is clear. “A lot of the [AUU] Board are really attached to tradition. But being involved with O’Ball this year has taught me that sometimes you have to let go of tradition… there’s a certain point where you have to realise it’s time for a change.” A name change would be tricky, and a new one would have to be carefully considered, but an opportunity to eliminate the ambiguity and adopt a name that more accurately reflects what the event actually is, should be embraced by the AUU. The current one damages marketing prospects and confuses too many students.
Another reason why the name seems a little archaic in this day and age is the increasing move away from O’Ball – Orientation Ball – as an event actually designated to aid students in the orientation process. This year, O’Ball took place at the end of week three of lessons, at the tail end of Adelaide’s brief, intense festival season. After weeks of festivals Adelaide, Fringe, WOMADelaide and Format, as well as the Clipsal 500, students are physically and financially drained. The unfortunate timing of the event is an issue recognised by O’Ball organisers. Brown emphasises that to compete with these events was not O’Ball’s intention, and that the eventual date chosen was the least rivalrous one possible. But it’s a competitive time, and, like it or not, O’Ball is fighting a losing battle.
Around 460 tickets pre-sold. Some more sold at the door, sure. Bringing it to a ‘grand’ total in the vicinity of 550 revellers. Which sounds perfectly respectable until you factor in all the logistical costs of running the event: bands, security, and the stage. All told, O’Ball ended up slightly more than $12,000 in the red this year, which is, almost to the dollar, what was spent on bands. So it can be solvent… just take out the tunes. Nearly $22,000 was spent on the ever-nebulous ‘logistics’ – construction of the stage, mainly. There is one significant mitigating circumstance; the AUU did not receive its customary takings of around $10,000 from alcohol sales. Normally, the University’s catering firm is obliged to give over its O’Ball revenues to the AUU. However, the University of Adelaide Club, as of this year the University’s primary hospitality provider (having taken over from the National Wine Centre), would likely have baulked at this suggestion  – no one likes being thrown in the deep end so early in their tenure. When considering the $8,000 loss of O’Ball in 2009, this year’s stacks up well. But salvation is fleeting when you consider that, each year post-Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU), the AUU has budgeted for a $10,000 loss. With all respect to O’Ball organisers, rock concerts should really be making money, especially when they’re plastered with corporate signage. Concluding that a loss of ‘only’ $2,000 more than what was budgeted for – particularly when that estimate is a negative one and the event itself is modest compared to previous years – is a positive outcome screams one thing. That it’s time for Obama-like amounts of change.
Another mitigating circumstance is the imposition of VSU itself. Since the second semester of 2006, the AUU has expended much of its energy attempting to stabilise its ravaged finances. The adjustment to a severely diminished membership base – and all the consequences of said adjustment – has had to prioritise financial viability more than ever before. And it’s not easy to get more creative, so the AUU has found that it’s often easier to get smaller. This rationalisation has affected O’Ball as much as other events. Says Brown, “We used to be able to spend a lot more money on bigger-name bands, but it’s now at a point where there’s no room in the budget for a really big band… the money just plain isn’t there.” This has the unfortunate effect of not ensuring a return on any initial investment, as this year’s testifies. “There’s just a certain level of money you have to put in to get it back, and I don’t think that amount of money was put in this year,” he continues. Especially when the event’s target demographic is the notoriously unpredictable student market (particularly in Adelaide, which, according to Brown, is a nightmare for promoters for the same reason). “O’Ball, from having taken this jump from a much bigger festival, has lost almost all of its brand loyalty… what’s happened over the past couple of years, is it needs to re-brand.” I asked him whether he thought this would further risk the loyalty of long-time fans. “I think it’s been lost already, to be honest. That shows in the ticket sales this year.” Cringe-worthy though it may be to many, a sharper turn toward corporate sponsorship and away from whatever independent roots O’Ball grew from may be necessary to secure the event’s financial viability.
There’s not a whole lot of denial floating around. AUU Marketing Manager, Lara Mieszkuc, careful to point out she is speaking from her own perspective and not necessarily as an employee of the AUU, explains the problems and their solutions to me. “Last year, I didn’t want O’Ball if it were at the start of the year… It won’t run again in that format [as currently]. O’Ball used to get 3,000 people, but now I just don’t think it can compete with Soundwave, Clipsal, WOMAD…” When I question whether the timing of O’Ball does, in fact, mean to compete with these festivals, she points out the last O’Ball that really tried to go head-to head with them. In 2007, O’Ball played host to the talents of Something for Kate, Sarah Blasko, and Regurgitator, among others. The event lost $70,000. “So what we’ve [the AUU] done is to draw it back to an alternative, less commercial event, so it’s not directly competing with any of these things.” However, doesn’t this policy devalue O’Ball as an Orientation event? Is the answer, then, to drop the name and have it at another time of the year? Mieszkuc has a slightly different idea. “Have something during Orientation, with similar size bands [to this year], in the Unibar. So you’ve got a 500 capacity, you’re not spending as much money. Then have something later in the year, maybe in October. I think that in March, there’s just no point doing anything like this any more.” It seems a suggestion that has an answer to most questions. If O’Ball were clearer in its ambitions, then it would not face as many criticisms about its place in the festival and University calendars.
It is not all doom and gloom, however. The line-up itself? Brown thinks that the Waterslides, Hot Little Hands, Cloud Control, Space Invadas, and Yves Klein Blue put on a great show. “We were really happy. Within the constraints we had, we got some really good live performers. We knew we couldn’t afford a huge name to come and perform, so we had to pick based on their ability to put on a good live show”. I am inclined to agree. Though I missed the first half of the event, what I did see impressed me. Friends who were present for the event’s entirety echo these sentiments. The contrast between the folk-inflected pop of Cloud Control, smooth R&B of Space Invadas and rougher rock edges of Yves Klein Blue was a complimentary one that offered something for music enthusiasts of most persuasions. The key thing lacking, however, for reasons explained above, was the lack of a major headlining act to get more people through the gates and watching these smaller bands.
The situation as it stands is self-perpetuating. Downsizing O’Ball because you recognise that it cannot compete with higher-profile events then keeping it at the same part of the year and suffering doubly because the bands are less likely to attract a crowd is a strange decision indeed. The hands of the AUU are tied only so long as it persists with branding it as an Orientation event, as this necessitates it taking place around festival season. Reducing losses by cutting costs is a zero-sum game that threatens the event and risks alienating students. Changing the headline act from Sarah Blasko to Yves Klein Blue may well draw a different demographic, but it will be a smaller one equally conflicted by what’s going on around it.  The AUU must be clearer in its goals for what O’Ball should be, both for it, and for students, because although success is relative, it currently meets no one’s criteria for it.