The Fresh Party at the Hordern Pavilion had all the makings of a great Saturday afternoon, with a hot DJ line up and other scheduled entertainment like fashion parades, give-a-ways and so forth. Aimed at the 18-to-24 year old market, the event was aiming to show younger party goers that binge drinking represents the ugly side of partying; that you can have a great time without shoving and entire bottle of scotch down your throat and throwing up in a gutter.

Being the non-drinker I am, I was really supportive of the cause. I’ve never been a fan of drunks and sloppy drinking haunts: they always seem to end in tears, fights and the degradation of some poor punter along the way. So I can understand where the organizers were coming from! However, I seriously doubt whether the message they were sending reached the right audience, and I had a couple of issues with the event that made me wonder what they were thinking. Don’t get me wrong, the set up and production was excellent in some respects. A massive disco ball was hanging from the roof of the Hordern, there were X-Box machines for the punters as well as massive wide screen projectors shooting images onto the walls. No alcohol was being served (of course), but there was plenty to choose from in the way of frosty beverages and food.

Here is where my issues with the event begin. Firstly, tickets were available to buy for people of all ages so there were a lot of 10 to 15 year olds wondering around being escorted by their parents. This may not seem like a bad thing on the surface, but if you’re trying to show 18–24 year olds a different way of partying, then hanging out with your kid brother and your mum doesn’t exactly offer the best of examples.

MC Jabba came on stage and did a small but feeble skit on binge drinking and its effects. There were a few giveaways and the like, before TV Rock came out on stage to do a set. These guys went off at the Future Music Festival, but I can’t say their music was properly in tune with the crowd they were playing to here. They had some dancers on stage that looked like they’d come straight from pole dancing lessons, instead of bustin’ moves to the music as you’d expect. I guess they were perhaps expecting an older crowd, but a hardcore dance music vibe certainly didn’t fit the crowd present at the Fresh Party. Something along more commercial lines would have been a better match here. Nonetheless, the kids got into it and had a ball.

The fashion parade was next, and this is where I have one of my bigger issues. If you are going to send a message to kids to be responsible and healthy, sending 14-16 years olds down a catwalk who look like they hadn’t eaten in quite a while is plain irresponsible. There are plenty of healthy people out there who would have looked great in the clothes that were being advertised, but the models didn’t exactly look healthy and weren’t exuding an attitude of fun and excitement either. So that was a source of contention for me!

The Rogue Traders belted out onto the stage next. This was to be their last gig before they headed off overseas to tackle the US, and I wish them all the luck in their travels: but the Fresh Party must have made for quite a disappointing final performance. There were about 300 people in the venue by that stage (keep in mind that the venue holds thousands) and even that was thinning out as they played. Not their fault as they really did put on a great show, just to the wrong type of crowd. No one moved or danced, everyone just stood there. Much disappointment!

In essence, this could have been a great opportunity to showcase a type of recreation that doesn’t involve embarrassing yourself after too many beers. It would have been good to have seen some written information distributed about the subject, as well as some other guest speakers or hotline information. Information booths would have also been a good way to get the message out to the kids: perhaps a show bag with bunch of goodies and info would have been a hit.

I guess coming off the back of the Easter long weekend meant a crowd was hard to gather, but I hadn’t heard much in the way of advertising for the event either. So I suppose in the end the message was lost… Better luck next time guys.