As Freshers’ Week began, tickets for the events were quickly selling out, including the Barn Dance, Laid Back and Latte and Brightonian Nights.
The Barn Dance was the first event to sell out, an event hosted for many years and still continuing to be popular with the first-year undergraduates.
According to Scott Sheridan, Activities Officer, this year’s Freshers’ Week has been the “best-selling, smoothest running Freshers’ Week in five years and the most enjoyable. Even Brightonian Nights went smoothly and was really popular.”
The week, hosted by the Students’ Union and Activities, was organised to welcome the 3,050 freshers either living on or off campus. This is an increase of 150 students from last year, according to the University of Sussex.
On Saturday 25 September, in the morning and throughout the day, first-years made their way to their new homes and on the following day, Sunday, there were more arrivals, anxiously awaiting the chance to settle in to their new homes.
Saturday night kick started the week and saw the first of many events during Freshers’ Week, the Saturday Social at the new-look Falmer Bar.
By 11pm, the bar was packed, and many students were sitting on the floor outside.
As the week went on, many freshers still remembered the first night, with many saying that it was “really good”, though some were disappointed. One fresher sadly could not find Falmer Bar and missed the event entirely.
Another big event was the Big Welcome Party on Sunday night which hosted live music in Mandela Hall, songs chosen by freshers themselves in Falmer Bar Back (the area formerly known as The Cube), and a range of music in Falmer Common Room. Over 1000 tickets were sold and the event was sold out.
In the day, events proved to be so popular that a large queue formed outside the Box Office in Falmer House and even on Monday, students were still buying tickets for the Pier Party and the Seafront Festival.
This year, the Students’ Union launched a scheme of providing Gold Tickets for 250 students.
The Gold Tickets cost £52 each and allowed the wrist-band wearer to enter seven main events in the course of the week, including the Big Welcome Party, Laid Back and Latte, the Barn Dance, the Oceana Freshers Party, The Pier Party and The Seafront Festival. Ticket-holders also saved themselves over £10.
As usual, the week also involved day activities including Sunday Funday on 26 September and You’re Hired! on 28 September. Sports Development Officer, Luke Terrill, explained that Sunday Funday was a success as every free class on offer was completed booked up. The Dodgeball tournament proved also to be very popular with 12 teams of six students, often a mixture of boys and girls.
You’re Hired!, on Tuesday, hosted by enterprise Thursdays, involved three groups from different residences to compete in a ‘special Freshers’ Week workshop’.
Each group worked on ideas for Freshers’ events and presented their ideas to three judges.
The winning team won a meal for 10 at Al Duomo. One contestant said that he was having fun and that he was “looking forward to the Pier Party and other Freshers’ events.”
