UCD Ents have come under fire for their handling of the cancellation of two major headline acts. The recent ‘Cheesefest’, set to feature three 90s pop bands, was thrown into turmoil with only the Vengaboys playing as advertised.
S Club and Five failed to appear at the event, with the latter pulling out with just hours to go. Students were informed of the cancellations at ten to eight on the night of the performances, via the SU and Ents Facebook groups. Both groups appeared at last year’s rescheduled Christmas Ball.
Ents officer, Stephan Darcy, conveyed his annoyance to the College Tribune: “I was personally upset that this happened and I am promising to make it up to the students.”
S Club were forced to pull out due to a family bereavement. However, one member, Bradley McIntosh, appeared at the event and sang 4 songs because he “felt like he let the students down” according to Darcy. Five cancelled at 4 pm on Thursday as one of the band members was having a wisdom tooth removed, rending them unable to perform.
The ticket charge for the event was €15, however a €5 refund was given at the door or the option of two free pints. Darcy informed the Tribune that these acts are “contractually bound…therefore we won’t lose money.” It is not yet clear if a refund will be available for those who did not attend as a result of the cancellations.
Darcy has vowed to re-schedule these gigs and says “we should expect that Five and S Club will be playing in UCD in the very near future.” As well as the rescheduling of these acts, Darcy has promised other big acts such as Faith SFX, a beatboxer, who currently is Plan B’s warm-up act. Peter Hamilton
I find that this year’s UCD ents are terrible. I thought that Darcy was going to bring some good new events and new acts to ucd but no, we still have to deal with bands such as the venga boys and s club (who can’t even be called s club 7 anymore because there is only 2) and five (who also only have two members) these acts aren’t even worth 2 euro they’ve been done before. Look at trinity ents and how well Chris o’ connor is doing, he is bringing good night and brilliant acts. Stop with the second rate acts, it’s embarrassing. Yes LMFAO had one good song but I’d say they cost a lot. Not good. If the freshers ball was a loss and you say that Lil’John was such a hit, then why weren’t all the tickets sold, because no one liked the line up. I am actually getting so angry at this rate I think I could actually predict who is going to play at the ucd ball. Definitely not Kid Cudi anyway like Darcy promise. Maybe if you put more of the profit into getting good acts then you could bring up the ucd ents reputation instead of keeping it, getting shit acts, which then make our colleges ents look like utter crap. Sort it.
Any suggestions for Darcy then seen as you’re so critical?
I’d have to agree with Aisling on this one. There are several Irish bands doing the rounds at the moment who could draw as much of a crowd as the same novelty acts that appear in SUs around the country, such as S Club, The Venga Boys and FIve. Just look at the draw that the HWCH had a few weeks ago in the city centre. Also, more could be done to promote bands that actually go to UCD, like the Enileven gig a couple of weeks ago which pulled a fairly decent crowd (although it must be said that this was a free gig).