Infamous keg party to go into hyding?
The Hyde St keg party—one of Otago University’s last remaining pillars of Scarfie-ism— could be abolished, should the 2013 edition mirror the 2012 event.
The Dunedin City Council (DCC) and the University intend to ban the party and introduce a liquor ban to the student area of North Dunedin should the level of mayhem again become excessive, Critic reports.
The Otago University Students’ Association (OUSA) met with tenants, landlords, the DCC and emergency services to find ways to make the event safer this time around.
In 2012, 80 people were admitted to Dunedin hospitals and nine arrests were made over the course of the day. The damage to properties caused by last year’s event—which included the collapse of one flat’s roof by dozens of students— is also a cause for concern among all stakeholders.
After the raucous nature of the event in 2012, former Hyde St dweller Anthony Phillips told Salient students have been portrayed as “drunken destructive animals”, but weren’t to blame.
“It’s not the students that do all the bullshit, it’s the dickheads from out of town.”
Otago students claim media exaggerated the number of student arrests last year, with only one Otago student taken into custody.
OUSA has proposed capping the number of attendees at about 3500 by handing out tickets to tenants on Hyde St and adjacent streets to give away to others.
Hyde St’s residents, among them third year Otago student Michael Lowe, have warmed to the idea.
“The more you think about it, you realise that it would make the party way better with more people that you know, and so it’d probably be more fun and less shit fucked up… I would like Hyde St to continue so obviously I want stuff to be done to control it,” Lowe told Salient.
Otago is no stranger to drunken havoc; in February, two students broke their hands after falling off a roof in North Dunedin.