Ball Crashing
Colleges with larger May balls pay considerable attention to security and the prevention of ball crashing. With tickets priced at over £100 and in short supply, students often try to gain unauthorized access, climbing high walls, arriving dressed as gorillas pretending to be part of the evening's entertainment, and posing as journalists. Typically, college porters are joined by both student and professional security staff and, at larger balls, police to identify and apprehend the crashers. Some colleges have painted walls with anti-burglar paint, which stains the crashers' clothes with luminous green paint, making it somewhat difficult to blend in. More courageous crashers can be seen swimming down the river Cam holding their clothes in a plastic bag above the water in an attempt to enter colleges from the banks.
As part of the security arrangements, students living in parts of the college and not attending the May Ball are often required either to vacate their rooms or remain in them without leaving overnight, in spite of the inevitable loud music.
Read more about this topic: May Ball
Famous quotes containing the words ball and/or crashing:
“Eating’s going to be a whole new ball game. I may even have to buy a new pair of trousers.”
—Lester Piggott (b. 1935)
“While there we heard the Indian fire his gun twice.... This sudden, loud, crashing noise in the still aisles of the forest, affected me like an insult to nature, or ill manners at any rate, as if you were to fire a gun in a hall or temple.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)