News

OUSA has provided more details on the format of this year’s Hyde Street party, with numbers likely to be capped at 3500 and ticket allocations given to residents. The decisions come after a public meeting on Monday and a stakeholders’ meeting on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Otago Daily Times’s coverage of the event remains as hilarious as ever.

According to an OUSA spokesman, “the tenants are really keen to limit the numbers” from the estimated 5000 who showed up last year. Such a turnout created a severe safety risk as emergency services were unable to reach students stuck in the middle of the crowd. OUSA acknowledged that a tradeoff was needed to reach the figure of 3500. “For us the numbers thing was the hardest, because the emergency services were saying 2000-2500, residents and students just want a mean party, so we kind of need to meet in the middle.” Critic speculates that the DCC, which yearns to kill the event deader than Hugo Chavez, would be thrilled to learn that safety concerns are being “met in the middle.”

Hyde Street tenants are to receive a ticket allocation, estimated to be between 10 and 15 per tenant, to share with their friends. Residents of adjacent streets may also receive invitations to the event, although nothing has yet been finalised. The remainder of the tickets will be sold to Otago students in their second year or above for “somewhere between $2 and $5,” with the proceeds going towards health and safety costs. First-years can attend if they live on Hyde Street or are given an allocated ticket, but OUSA noted that the event “has traditionally been for third-years and above, and that’s what we want to go back to.” So fuck off, freshers.

In order to prevent scalping and to minimise the ability of non-Otago students to hijack the event, ticket-holders will receive wristbands with their name and emergency contact details. This will make it easier for organisers to spot gatecrashers and for emergency services to deal with injured or comatose partygoers. University of Otago Vice-Chancellor Harlene Hayne told Critic last week that “carnage” from last year’s party had spread almost to the botanical gardens, and that passed-out students “had no ID on them, so we had no way of knowing who they were or where they belonged.”

The attempts by event organisers to limit attendance to Otago students have been welcomed. Hayne noted that many non-students seem to attend for the sole purpose of “wreaking havoc,” and OUSA stressed the importance of keeping “outsiders” away. These sentiments were shared by the students to whom Critic spoke. “I don’t like all these outsiders coming in and changing things,” one said. “We got a nice little town here and these non-Dunedin folks gotta go back to where they belong.”

For once, though, the rednecks seem to be right, as most of last year’s disturbances were caused by non-Otago students. While the ODT has been stubbornly reporting that 15 were arrested at last year’s party, OUSA assures Critic that the correct number is 10, with only one of those an Otago student. In the aftermath of last year’s party the ODT were citing 18 arrests, neatly demonstrating their philosophy of “if in doubt, exaggerate” in relation to student antics. Critic did the math, and calculated that at this rate the ODT should be reporting the correct figure by late 2014.

Last year Critic questioned the enforceability of the glass ban OUSA had announced for the event, given that the street was a public space. This year, however, it appears that the police intend to close off the street for the day, which will make the glass ban and the ticketing limits fully enforceable.

The event’s ground rules took shape after two meetings last week hosted by OUSA. The first was a public meeting in Union Hall in which students were invited to share their opinions. It was reported in the ODT as “quiet,” possibly because only six people attended or (more likely) because the ODT didn’t actually go and therefore couldn’t hear it from their insulated, labyrinthine lair. OUSA claimed that the low attendance outed those who had been complaining online about some of the propositions, including the ticket allocation, as “trolls.”

Given the overall pointlessness of the Monday meeting, Critic assumes that most of the real decisions were made at the stakeholders’ meeting on Wednesday, which was closed to the press. Critic’s attempts to sneak in anyway were to no avail, and our intrepid reporter was escorted away from the Clocktower building by taser-wielding heavies wearing “Are You Okay?” T-shirts. Since Critic can only speculate about the wonders that occurred inside, and because speculation is pretty much Critic’s stock in trade, Critic speculates that the meeting involved dim lighting, large digital maps of the world and shark tanks into which dissenters were ruthlessly cast by cackling OUSA masterminds.