2008

Arrh me hearties, 2008’s Pirate Orientation was probably the most well-planned and coordinated event to date. It brought better than expected crowd attendance and participation by students, staff and Executive. Highlights included the 7 Seas Challenge, the Hypnotist Night, Concord Dawn, Clubs’ Day with an excellent Trolley Derby, Guitar Hero Competition, Comedy Night, and probably the biggest event the ASA has put on yet, Katchafire. This was the last event for our Event Manager, Bronwyn Porter and she did us proud!

2007

Bronwyn Porter took over the Event Manager’s responsibilities in 2007 and brought us an Orientation whose highlights included a Comedy Night featuring Dai Henwood and Mrs. Peacock, a Hypnotist Night with host Grant Boddington, Concord Dawn rocked Evo Bar, Clubs’ Day sprawled in front of the Atrium, a double-decker bus Pub Crawl, the all-colour Orientation issue of Satellite and Heatwave (a Hip Hop Gig). All this within budget! Pretty much you can’t ask for more than that (except for thanking all our lovely sponsors and advertisers of course).

2006

Nine years later and The Exponents reformed for a NZ Tour that featured a stopover at Orientation supported by Autozahm and Midnight Youth. This was the last big night before the end of the festival with Orientation stretching from Wednesday 22 Feb to Saturday 4 March. Over the week and a half we packed in a Karaoke night, Elemeno P with Foamy Ed and Quarter 2 on the first Friday, Rock 101 on the following Monday with Tourist, The Septembers, Midnight Youth and Ruptus Jack followed by the Hostel Mingle with pirate band Scurvy Dogs. On Wednesday there was a Beach Party with Quarter 2, Tahuna Breasks, dDub, Jonny Doom and the Forcefields and Odessa, and the annual Pub Crawl. During the day we had a Playstation competition, an Emerging Artist tour, Market Day, Clubs' Day, and even an Art Expo, all of which we extend our hearty thanks and farewells to Paul who bowed out and to Bronwyn Porter as she stepped in and stepped up.

2005

With a continuing emphasis on providing Orientation activities on the East Precinct, ASA decided to site a Garden Bar outside the Atrium and deliver a variety of lunchtime events and acts to the students.

Reggae legends Katchafire with support acts dDub and Dubhead helped kick off the festival that stretched over two weeks.

Following this up was a kick-ass Clubs' Day with ska act The Managers returning by popular demand. Regular features such as a Village Mingle for the Hostel students brought new bands Miscreant and Bored Gordon to prominence, Market Day featured 4 Man Bob and These Four Walls, while the nights were dominated by Tourist and Sonic, Concord Dawn, 48 May, Goodnight Nurse and Redmore.

Whew. Thanks again Mr. Dowd.

2004

2004 and the first opportunity for our new Campus Arts coordinator, Paul Dowd to show his quality. Paul didn't disappoint with top flight kiwi act Elemeno P headlining what proved to be a fantastic week of activities if not for the weather.

Upcoming bands Goodnight Nurse, Odessa, and One Million Dollars were great supporting acts, while The Managers burned up concourse.

Old hand Paul Ubana Jones and comedian Benjamin Crellin combined for a Comedy Jazz Night that rounded out a programme that ranged from ska punk to blues.

Great work Paul, we're all looking forward to 2005.

2003

Orientation in 2003 had the largest amount of bands that we'd ever had. Paul Ubana Jones and Hammond Gamble impressed us so much they're back for 2004! The clubs day was huge - the most successful yet. We had loads of clubs there and even had some crazy guys abseiling off a cherry picker to advertise the Alpine Adventure Club! All this was thanks to a huge effort by Nicole Young - our Coordinator for 2003.

2002

Daniel Harrison introduced us to the magic of technology and advertising as he brought together a fantastic Orientation packed with old favourites and another selection of great NZ acts – Soda, Concrete, WBC and Salmonella Dub. We had the usual range of theme nights, the pub crawl, dance parties, a movie night at the local Hoyts and a sprinkling of on-campus activities including Clubs' and Market Days, a welcome to our International students and a fantastic Retro theme party to cap it all off.

2001

Debauched, depraved, drunken, dizzy and DB are all words to describe this year's Orientation. Simon Kelly and Jolene Rodley brought the Chook back in 2001 along with Fur Patrol hot from their win as the Best Band of year at the NZ Music Awards for a solid night of entertainment. We shifted the bar to the main campus site, fenced, staged, lit and powered the bands for the lucky patrons who came – surely a night that will live in infamy.

2000

Our first year as the Albany Students' Association saw us raise the bar as far as the festival was concerned. We welcomed the new Millennium Village residents to a Pizza Party at the bar, then followed a Dance party, Comedy Festival, pub crawl, Mature Students' wine and cheese, an inter-College scavenger Hunt, MADSODs “Half truths and Lies of Seven Students” and finally the Export Gold Party held at the old Albany 3-Guys Building – what a mission. For the final gig we shifted over 4 tonne of lumber (twice!), completely relocated the bar and facilities off-site and brought in top NZ acts Tadpole, Wash and DJ Overkill to keep the punters happy. The last great Orientation of the millennium courtesy of Chris Sanders!

1999

The wiser heads of Carl Pollard, Shelley Saward and Mara Soljan returned in 1999 to provide the campus with a Written-on/Written-off night with local band, Club Nerd, a brewery tour, a Wine trail, and a Hawaiian night with NZ legend, Dave Dobbyn. Activities aplenty and higher levels of sponsorship aided the association to provide a fantastic range of sponsored products and services to the students through the Orientation bags and events.

1998

Mara Soljan, Samiuella Palu and Shelley Saward brought us the “Year of the Chook” – take a look around the local Albany Village and you soon get the message in terms of appropriate campus mascot. The 2,500 odd people enjoyed a rave, a dance party with FBI, and an Irish night with the Shamrocks and the first performance by the campus Drama Society – MADSODS. A watershed year as the hostels outgrew the campus and the association was torn between providing events on both sides of the fastest growing campus in the country.

1997

The year of the Exponents – the last gig was legend – outside, 2,000 people partying behind the student carpark on the Oteha Rohe precinct. We organised tents, marquees, outside staging, portable generators, fencing security and vast amounts of food and liquor. So what did Mother Nature do? – rain all over us, but Albany students proved that a little water wasn't going to get between them and good time as they partied to the early hours of the morning – Steve Dooley and Andrew Jackson – take a bow.

1996

The XLR8 Dance Party – RTDs made it onto the Auckland scene and our Scholar's Bar set various dubious records including the most Coruba and Cokes consumed anywhere on the Shore. Structured events such as Clubs' Day and Market Day began to offset the nighttime party atmosphere as Albany reached 2,000 people. We gave away prizes for the most unfortunate ID card photo, limited edition T-shirts while hosting Karaoke nights, hypnotists and more oompah bands (the Beerfest thing from 1995 really took off). Thanks to Carl Pollard, Andrew Waite and Jonathan Chappell for their work in keeping the masses happy.

1995

Another year - more buildings, more people, more cars and great expectations. Orientation was suddenly big enough to stretch its legs and go outside – we arranged a marquee, additional fencing and staging for a line-up that included iconic local acts such as the Random Trollops, Paul Ubana Jones, Xenolith, Cranking Dream and Jungle Fungus. We had our first Beerfest complete with oompah band, and our first brewery tour/pub crawl – kudos to O'Week Coordinator Jason Brock-Smith and his Palmerston North counterpart, Kristina Forsberg for their combined efforts.

1994

The glorious beginning of the Orientation saga. With a campus size of just under 1,000 the association decided it was important to strike out and show that we were able to offer our students as much of a festival as anywhere else. What a mission – even the poster was designed off campus as we scrabbled to pull in performers, organise the bar, and dredge up sponsorship at a time when the campus looked like a Kentucky-fried retirement village. Well we did it, and set in place the structure that would allow us to build up a bigger and better O'Week for those to come – classic Kiwi band, Supergroove played to the delight to all and even kept playing when we blew the building's fuses, we served cold beer on a hot sultry night and partied into the small hours (to the relative distress of the locals) – Massey University's Albany Campus was here to stay. Thanks to our first O'Week Coordinator, Wayne Ramshaw for pulling it all together.