Market Day is the biggest day of the UQ Union calendar. With thousands of new students flooding the St Lucia campus, the student body is tasked with the mammoth effort of coordinating the stalls, entertainment and logistics of the iconic orientation event.
This year, in an effort to reduce the strain on UQU executives, Union President Georgia Milroy decided to hire an external project manager to externally manage the project.
However, on the eve of Market Day, the Union has expressed concern about their decision to hire rapper Ja Rule as their point man.
‘I’m going to be one hundred percent down the line with you here: when he signed him up, I genuinely hadn’t seen the Fyre Festival documentaries,’ President Milroy told The Obiter in an exclusive interview at Subway.
‘In hindsight, I did think it was weird that a world famous rapper had reached out to us to express his interest in helping out with Market Day. But I just thought he was an over-zealous first year; he’s studying an Event Management Single Major part time this year.’
Milroy admits that as Market Day drew closer , her team of advisers became anxious about Mr Rule’s event management experience.
‘Throughout the planning stage, Ja would hang out at Pizza Café for hours on end and kept claiming to anyone who’d listen that he had secured Blink-182 to perform in the Great Court on Market Day. We saw no emails or confirmation or anything from Blink-182’s management, and were suspicious because in previous years we hadn’t even been able to lock down The Steele Syndicate’s jazzy rhythms, but Ja assured us he was all over it.’
The Union’s concerns were only amplified in January when a pair of documentaries were released, unpacking Ja Rule’s disastrous previous event ‘Fyre Festival.’ ‘We split the our Exec into two,’ Milroy explained.
‘Half watched the Netflix doco, half watched the Hulu (a notably more difficult task because they had to torrent it off Euduroam).’
‘We became quickly aware that Ja was not the master event organiser he proclaimed to be.’
As early as Monday, Mr Rule was contacting the State Emergency Services to source stalls and supplies that they often reserve for flood and cyclone affected areas.
‘In what world did Ja Rule think the SES would stock L Card posters?’ asked bewildered officer Mark Silver.
With students set to arrive at UQ tomorrow morning, the Union is now planning for the worst case scenario.
‘We’re getting Merlos to do up some cheese sandwiches for everyone just in case this goes tits up early,’ Milroy said whilst clutching a long black and a brown paper bag.
We’ll see how this goes. Certainly more to come.