Student’s Halloween Ball

On October 26^th 2011, students from UL, LIT and Mary I all converged onto the streets of Limerick dressed in their finest Halloween costumes. I happened to be one of the 600 or so ghoulish students attending the ‘Halloween Ball’ in the South Court Hotel that night.

I first heard of the event through an announcement made on the ‘Limerick SU Events’ page on Facebook. They posted a video up giving us all the much needed information of where to buy the tickets, how much they would cost, where the event would take place, etc. For the week building up to the event, the UL campus was buzzing. My friends and I wasted no time and purchased our tickets for the reasonable price of €12. Then we started thinking about costume ideas because fancy dress was compulsory for the event!

Delorentos

 With the doors open at 8.30, the craic was flowing from an early stage. Hordes of undergraduates gathered around the hotel with their tickets in-hand. Drivers-by slowed down to catch a glimpse of the creative and almost outrageous costumes. ‘Recoil’ got the night underway in spectacular fashion with their indie chart covers as the ‘Red Bull Wings’ team provided the revelling crowd with energy for the long night ahead. Next on stage was the Dublin based band ‘Delorentos’. They are a band who I have been listening to for a few years now and I was very pleased to hear they would be performing on the night. Thankfully, they didn’t disappoint. Playing all their own material, they had the exhilarated swarm of students singing along in no time! They blasted out chart hits ‘S.E.C.R.E.T’ and ‘Sanctuary’ as well as lesser known songs such as ‘STOP’ and ‘Basis of Everything’. The task of following up the indie rockers was given to 2fm’s Ruth Scott. Her floor-filling DJ set kept the carousing crowd on their feet until the night was through while playing different genres of music, keeping everyone happy.

Delorentos on stage

‘College is the best time of your life’ - the words of our tour guide on our Orientation day. In fairness to him, he wasn’t wrong in saying that. He told us to look out for events such as Fresher’s week, the Halloween Ball, and Rag week, as they would be the best craic. If Fresher’s week and the Halloween Ball are anything to go by, the rest of the year’s events should be savage!

Leo Cannon 11135646