Finding love through rowdy balls in Outback
ARIAH PARK, Australia: Pick-up trucks, cowboy boots and a 24-hour booze-fuelled party in the Outback: welcome to modern-day dating in Australia’s bush, where swiping right is not an option.
For single men and women on remote farms or in tiny villages, “Bachelor and Spinster” (BAS) balls offer a better chance of finding love than dating apps like Tinder.
The balls, a decades-old tradition in outback Australia, still attract thousands of young adults looking for love – or to get rolling drunk. “It’s very old-school,” Emily Pitt, a 24-year-old from the former gold rush town of Gulgong, said.
“It’s how country singles meet each other because you’re rural and there’s hundreds of kilometres between you.”
Surrounded by vast tracts of wheat and canola, Ariah Park, some 400km west of Sydney, is better known for grain-growing than big parties.
It has a population of just 500 and the main street – with its row of historic buildings with wide verandahs – looks preserved in time.
But on the last Saturday of October the usually peaceful village is inundated with pick-up trucks, which roar up to a dried-out paddock to deposit party-goers.
About 1,500 people showed up for this year’s outdoor drinking and dancing extravaganza, the second-turnout in the event’s 32-year history.
While the ball has a black-tie dress code, the warm-up party is a casual affair, with people wearing scruffy T-shirts, shorts and flip flops
It’s how country singles meet each other because you’re rural and there’s hundreds of kilometres between you. Emily Pitt
and drinking heavily.
“It’s just fun, you meet people, you drink, you party,” says five-time BAS party-goer Claudia Bailey, who travelled more than 200km to attend the celebration.
When night falls party-goers change into their formal attire and pack into a marquee where they stomp their boots and toss their cowboy hats into the air as they dance to country rock tunes belted out by live bands.
The balls are notorious for binge drinking, casual sex and dangerous driving antics, and safety is a perennial concern for organisers.
Ariah Park revellers get unlimited alcohol for their Aus$120 (RM388.40) entry ticket and a goody bag that includes a plastic beer cup and a condom.
Pre-ball entertainment once featured pick-up trucks – utility vehicles known as “utes” in Australia – tearing up the paddock in ear-splitting “circle work”.
That’s now banned but “key banging” – making a vehicle backfire – has taken centre stage. Across the showground, deafening pops shatter the air.
“They used to have a sit-down dinner, strictly black tie and closed shoes,” says organiser Ned Fisher, referring to ‘BAS’ balls of the past. “Now it’s a modern sort of thing where it’s just more of a bit of a party ... People just come here and have a good time and meet new people and just really let their hair down.”