With over $10k worth of prizes to be won, Radio One’s Re:Ori’ Marathon Mountain event was a huge success, with the winner managing to hold onto a paper mache mountain for over seven hours. The mountain was reportedly the only thing in North D that students had a tighter grip on than their vapes.
Set in the Main Common Room on Wednesday the 16th of July, a gargantuan mountain took over the space for the mid Re-O shenanigans. Plenty of festival season frothers showed up, eager for the chance to earn some free tickets to Snow Machine later in September.
Lily Knowles, Promotions Manager for Radio One, yarned with Critic Te Ārohi about the inspiration for the event, which had a mountainous increase in scale for 2025. Lily explained, “In previous years we do a winter weekend giveaway, which has just been like an online giveaway.” Prizes included ski passes, gear hire, and other essentials for a Wānaka or Queenstown mish.
Things got juicy when Snow Machine, a Queenstown-based ski-party-meets-music-festival, got on board for a giveaway. Radio One’s Music Director Logan Edwards mentioned the idea of putting your hand on something and keeping it there. And just like that, a (literal) mountain of ideas began to form.
Kristina, Radio One’s Station Manager, put in eight days of construction mahi to realise Lily and Logan’s vision. Intricately crafted from polystyrene, PVA, recycled Critics, balls of fluff and miniature skiing figures, the mountain was a sight to behold. While not as high as Coronet Peak, the mountain easily dwarfed the height of most students. Plus there was an avalanche of paperwork, too.
The day came and a large crowd gathered, definitely not through R1 kidnapping people off campus. The event started at 9:30am, but unsurprisingly people who were actually on campus that early during Re-O weren’t up for a bit of fun. By 11:30am, however, participants and a crowd of 30-40 nosy onlookers gathered in the Main Common Room for the fun – a bit of après-lectures, if you will.
They whittled down the number of potential winners through a series of competitions. Side quests included musical chairs – which Radio One staff said “got a little bit vicious” – and a one-footed standing competition. They ended this after a girl got out who had hit legs the night before – they felt that they were “being dicks and just bullying them at that point.”
Down to the last two on the mountain and the negotiations began when one realised they couldn’t actually go to the festival they were about to win passes for. Instead they called up the person who had come third, offered them the second prize, and took their hands off. “Everyone felt really good, it was just really wholesome.” The winner lasted seven hours, taking out a four day pass to Snow Machine, four days of snow passes and bungee passes, and more.
Logan was very proud of the event. “I am formally copyrighting this idea and I don’t wanna hear anything about Mr Beast or have anyone accuse me of outsourcing genius.” Lily, however, did want to note that this concept was not new, and money-hungry people wanting to win shit have touched random stuff for hours for decades now. “Yeah. It's an old school radio thing – people can go watch That ‘70s Show.”
With the winner reportedly entering any-and-all competitions for Snow Machine tickets, the mosh will be sure to welcome someone who got their ticket through pure grit and patience. Since the competition, the mountain now lives at OUSA reception at campus. Fingers crossed it doesn’t melt under the LED office lights.