Hi Katherine, Thanks for getting in touch.

Since Flora Noble currently has a backlog of You Make Change submissions this has fallen to me to answer in the meantime. We have received a number of questions regarding the ticket price of Grad Ball, and Flora has been directing many to her main response here: susu.org/you-make-change/788.

The revenue from ticket sales goes entirely on the running of the event which mainly comprises of the variety of music acts and attractions as well as the materials and equipment used in the decorating and setup of the venue and staff time (including bar staff, tech team, security etc.). Flora has listed the attractions that will be at Grad Ball in her previous response that I linked earlier. As you can appreciate, Grad Ball is a massive one-off event with many big name music acts at multiple stages hosted in a building that was not designed to be a club venue, which means that we have to put a lot of time and money into transforming the Union building. Grad Ball is more similar to a music festival like Soundclash or Common People where you would be paying ~£40 for a ticket rather than a regular club night in town with house DJ's.

The Union makes no profit on Grad Ball. Last year's Grad Ball was hosted in the Union building at £40 per ticket and we made a financial loss on it, effectively subsidising the event. This year's price of £45 is designed to better reflect the actual cost of planning in order to keep the event sustainable.

Flora and the Grad Ball committee are in charge of strategic and budgetary decisions for the event, so if you have any further questions I would recommend contacting her at pres@susu.org, or coming in to the Union building speak to her in person during office hours.

Best wishes,

Steve Gore, VP Sports