The Electronic Music Appreciation Society or EMAS is looking to potentially cancel their flagship event Ibiza due to low ticket sales. This news comes in the wake of Sober? cancelling Frat Party three days before the event was due to take place.
EMAS, along with clubs like Sober? and Leisure UWA run massive events at the university centring around partying, live music and drinking. These well established clubs typically have high membership rates and operate with much higher budgets than the average club.
The recent cancellations and postponements of events, as well as dwindling attendees has seen a negative trend impacting campus culture at UWA. The cancelling of Ibiza and Frat Party is another symptom of this downwards trend. Pelican interviewed members of EMAS and Sober? to get their thoughts on the issue.
Pelican interviewed EMAS Music Director Isabel Boogaerdt about the recent events on campus. ‘Campus culture has been dissipating and people aren’t as keen to go to uni run parties and events’.
‘It makes it hard to raise money from events’.
When asked about the clubs history Boogaerdt had this to say ‘The tradition of our big events started with the song from Miami to Ibiza, generally a tropical beachy vibe with Miami, whereas Ibiza had room to be more flexible’.
She went on to state that , ‘Every exec team brings their own goals to events and works really hard to create iconic moments and events that people will keep coming to’.
Remaining optimistic for EMAS’s future Boogaerdt stated that ‘In 2nd semester we’ll be doing more specialised events such as boiler rooms where we can showcase our different interests and have fun with different events that aren’t focused on mainstream music’.
Regarding the cancellation of Frat Party, Sober? President Taylor Morris explained that, ‘Unfortunately we struggled to sell tickets, everything was booked we had all our permits with everything set in place but we just couldn’t sell enough tickets’.
Morris echoed the thoughts of Boogaerdt stating that ‘campus attendance especially at ticketed events has been decreasing in recent years. In my first year, a lot of events sold out the day they came on sale’.
‘I was Social Officer for ECOMS last year and they didn’t manage to sell out events, which is surprising given that they’re a FacSoc’.
Looking to the future Morris had this to say, ‘I think maybe something the guild could do is organise a meeting or a discussion during a Soc meeting or another time where we could discuss ideas’.
It’s clear that with the cancellations of Ibiza and Frat Party, as well as postponements of major events such as Leisure’s Texicana, that non-guild run events are on the decline. Meanwhile, Guild run events such as Block Party are receiving high numbers with heavily discounted tickets.
The big question is whether clubs can compete with the guild, as well as externally run events that tend to have more money and a larger pool of resources. Looking at the way things are going it seems doubtful that these social clubs will be as successful as they once were.
Miami Beach took place on April 5th
Words by Cameron Carr, Campus News Editor