On Friday, 4th March, 2022, the Alexander Brown Hall Executive Council released a memorandum notifying brownites of the cancellation of the Dinner for the Hall Week due to shortage of funds; promising to upgrade the Cultural Night, giving brownites an amazing “Coronation” experience at the event.
To garner more information on the upgrade to the Cultural Night mentioned in the document released, ABH Press held an interview with the Head of the Cultural Night Planning Committee, Miss Olanrewaju Ajeigbe. She stated that prior to the cancellation of the Dinner for the Hall Week, her team had been making plans to make the cultural night a remarkable event but on account of the new development as regards the Dinner for the Hall Week, more would be done to make it even greater than it had been planned to be.
Moreover, even though there were challenges faced by the committee due to high expenses, the ticket price would remain unchanged to preserve the team’s integrity since the price of the ticket had already been announced (500 Naira).
She mentioned that as a result of the upgrade, more food would be made available for brownites at the event, meaning that they would be getting more value for their money. She proceeded to say that the duration of the event would be lengthened as there would be no dinner the following day. There are plans to make available palm wine, puff-puff, asun, punch and an upgrade in the decor for that night to create a lovely ambience for brownites to relax that night.
Finally, she advised brownites to get their tickets in time as only 200 tickets are available to be sold. She emphasized that it would be best to obtain tickets before that night so that one would not miss out on the closing event of the ABH 62nd Hall Week as it promises to be amazing.
Concerning the cancellation of the Dinner for the Hall Week, ABH Press asked brownites for their honest opinions. Below are their responses:
Nifemi 2k17: I feel it was a good idea but I wish they had done it earlier so they wouldn’t have wasted money on publicity and diverted the money for something else. But again, I salute the bravery of the Hall’s executive council to come together make this decision as it would have taken a lot of courage to come out to cancel the dinner so that they can give us other things in the hall week that would work.
David 2k21: I think it’s a good call. So much is happening at the same time for almost the same set of people. It’s quite saturating. I hope the cultural night turns out nice. The idea is great and I hope the execution matches but I’m not getting my hopes up.
Derayo 2k18: It’s not totally unexpected really, considering the challenges planning the hall week and initial inertia. I think the hall week planning committee has done well so far and they’ve made the right choice in scrapping the dinner and doing the programs they can deliver value on. I look forward to seeing what’s cooking with respect to the cultural night.
Anonymous: I’m a part of the committee so I was a bit disappointed that it was scraped. I expect that it would be very fun and enlightening and it would make up for the dinner.
Christopher 2k17: From my perspective, even though I had a feeling that some activities would not hold, I didn’t expect it to be the dinner so, it’s sad as it was one of the main event I was looking forward to as regards the hall week activities. I understand that they couldn’t really get enough funds but it shows the improper and late planning of the committee as they knew beforehand that about the plans for the hall week and they should have made proper plans. I hope the cultural night turns out well considering what I’ve heard and personally, I wouldn’t want to miss the event.
