With comedy nights generally hard to rally a big crowd for, Matt Dundon’s first event of his campaign for Entertainments Officer – “A Night of Laughs” – was a notable success.
Held in Chaplin’s pub on Hawkins St, the event unfortunately coincided with the final hustings of the Trinity College Dublin Students Union (TCDSU) elections held in Halls last night, which as Dundon admitted himself when speaking to The University Times was quite stressful. “The fact that I had to help set up here, then run out the door to get the luas up to halls, deliver my speech, run back to the luas, then get back down here meant I actually missed the first 20 minutes of it.”
Yet despite these difficulties and the fact Dundon was given a minor strike on Friday for endorsement of last night’s event on DU Comedy’s Facebook page, resulting in a ban on online campaigning from 9am to 9pm yesterday, the event was still well attended. As Dundon affirmed, the lack of promotion before the event was frustrating but that “a surprisingly large amount of people still turned up”. With the upstairs room in Chaplin’s only holding 40, the event reached near capacity with the crowd enjoying comedians from across the college community such as Conor Nevin, Gary Doyle and Bláithín de Burca.
With a continuing emphasis in this year’s entertainments race on the importance of diversity and inclusion, Dundon has certainly proven this is a priority for him. Having constantly pushed his desire to collaborate with smaller societies and “tap into their potential”, last night showcased Dundon’s ability to successfully pull these kinds of events off. Rather than sticking to the safe option of hosting only club-nights out – which Dundon has the most experience with – during the campaign period, Dundon chose a risky alternative, and it paid off.
Tomorrow night Dundon will be running the second event of his campaign, “A Free Wigwam Party”. It will be interesting to see if the night attracts a good crowd, given the success of last night and Dundon’s experience with The Midnight Disco and the Entertainments Committee.
