Saturday night was the Summerball at the Chateau de Courances (http://www.ac-versailles.fr/arts/Ressource.asp?id=274). It was a marvelous marvelous night. Everyone turned up in décolleté evening dresses and tuxedos. We were greeted by carriage horses and “laquais” in costumes and taken to the entrance gate. Walking up the stairs felt like walking up the Croisette in Cannes in a beautiful evening outfit. Apart from catering (there might have been food but I never was really exposed to it), everything else was quite good – I think that the organizers could have saved money on the Chateau (since most of the action took place in tents in the main parks), on one tent (since it was completely empty) and there could have been some learning from the previous 7 Summerballs around catering and the challenges of feeding 1500 people. If Insead had a centralized sponsoring activities, to which members of clubs, organization committee and national could participate, it would probably help raise more funds as the tickets for the event are very expensive – for my humble homeless jobless pockets.
In fairness, it is such a difficult event to organize and people at Insead have so little time, that it remains a big achievement. Fireworks, extremely good live bands, cool and relaxed atmosphere and Insead-based band performance in an adjacent tent, champagne and laughter made up for the lack of organization. I spent most of my time in the main tent as it was the only place where I could feel warm enough, I kept losing friends and finding them again in the midst of loads of Insead faculty and alumni, also attending. I danced all night long like the rest of us…One of the last big parties near Fontainebleau…I stayed up until about 6am (I even managed to miss breakfast), crawled home and slipped into bed without shower and further ado.