The singles ball on Rakiura was the social event of the year, drawing punters from far and wide, raising thousands for local charities and connecting more than a few happy couples. The event’s mastermind tells Rachel Judkins how he did it.
Rakiura, Stewart Island. Famous for its geographical isolation, dark skies and rare birds. And for seven years starting in the mid-2000s, an annual Singles Ball that saw locals switching their Swanndris and gumboots for suits and stilettos, and welcoming to the island thousands of visitors looking for love.
The event was the brainchild of local hard case Doug Beck, who went from island renegade to Southern hero, leaving a trail of satisfied partygoers and a smattering of marriages in his wake.
The anchor of Maui’s canoe, Rakiura is Aotearoa’s southernmost settlement and a one hour ferry ride from Bluff. He’s a bit hazy on the dates, but Doug thinks he was in his 30s when he moved there. “I went over on holiday for a weekend,” he says “and never left.” He was immediately struck by the friendliness of the people and the beauty of the place. “The scenery is just absolutely off the richter scale.”
A self-confessed mischief-maker, Doug says he wasn’t well liked when he first showed up and was even kicked off the island after getting involved in a few too many brawls at the pub, but he later returned and made it his home. Like many of the locals, he became a jack of all trades working on the wharf, in the garage, on a salmon farm and eventually at the recycling centre, where he turned the rubbish dump into “something really nice”.
There may have been 400 permanent residents on the island, but Doug says you only ever saw about 100 of them if you were lucky. During the summer, visitors would bring more buzz to the place, but the winter months were quiet with a capital Q. And the downside to a small remote community based around the fishing industry was that there was only a small sprinkling of sheilas. Doug reckons there were four times as many single men on the island as there were women. “There was unquestionably a female drought,” he says with a laugh. “And those girls that were there weren’t too flash on any of the local guys.”
Doug could always be found at the South Sea Hotel in Oban – the one and only pub in the one and only town. It was there in 2005 that he had his lightbulb moment. Disgusted by the sight of the local boys doing the YMCA in their gumboots, he thought someone had to do something about the dating culture on Rakiura. And that someone was him.
Doug decided that the answer was to throw a ball – a proper classy affair – to attract new people to the island, but wasn’t sure anyone from the mainland would want to come. On a trip to Queenstown he managed to stir up some interest with Southerners he met along the way, and pretty soon the phones on the island were running red hot with punters looking for accommodation and tickets to a singles ball that didn’t even exist yet. A week later he returned home and started wrangling an organising committee that included members of the Lions Club, fire brigade and medical service.
A date was set for mid August, and tickets went on sale for $50 a pop with all proceeds to go to local charities. Doug got sponsors on board: Speights donated booze, fishermen offered to catch kaimoana for a seafood supper, and businesses on the mainland donated spot prizes. He even invited the navy so the more worldly sailors could teach some of the local boys a thing or two about how to fraternise with the fairer sex.
Knowing full well the tone of the island’s usual piss-ups, Doug was adamant that there was to be a strict dress code. “You had to be very tidily dressed,” he says. “You couldn’t come in your gumboots or your shorts or your wet weather gear.” As if that wasn’t clear enough, he reiterates strongly, “NO GUMBOOTS ALLOWED”.
The Singles Ball was advertised all over Southland, with posters in the towns, television interviews and giveaways in the local rags. Darren Sim, 32, a newly divorced cabinet maker from Mosgiel, was at work on a Saturday morning when he heard about the upcoming event on the radio. “I’d always wanted to go to Stewart Island so I thought why not?” He found a mate keen to join him, booked their travel and even ironed a “tidy shirt” for the occasion.
Meanwhile, in rural Southland, 27-year-old single gal and dairy farmer Jessica Bramer had discovered that there weren’t many eligible bachelors in her neck of the woods, so allowed herself to be convinced to go to the ball by her mum who knew someone with a spare ticket. But she’s adamant that she had zero expectations. “I was just looking to have a fun time, not looking for love,” she says. “I thought it would be nice to have a weekend off, get away from the farm for a bit.”
She wasn’t the only one. The ball’s marketing campaign had worked so well the organisers had to put on extra flights and ferries to transport the sudden influx of guests.
The ball venue was only a stumbling distance from the pub, so after donning their finery, local and imported revellers of all ages gathered at the South Sea Hotel for some good old fashioned pre-loading. Many of the guys were wearing tuxedos but Doug was most impressed by the ladies. “The girls had ball gowns, their make up all done, their hair all done,” he says. “They looked absolutely beautiful.”
The island had never seen such glamour. Or so many women.
Doug remembers the reaction from the local lads as these seemingly mythical creatures started showing up. “The boys were so sheepish,” he says. “They were like ‘oh my god, what do we do?’” He took it upon himself to teach the young fellas how to mingle with the ladies by showing them how it’s done. “I said ‘if you’re not going to talk to them, you’re not going to get anywhere, sunshine!’”
It was at the pre-ball drinks that Darren first caught a glimpse of Jess. “I eyed her at the pub and thought ‘oh yeah, she’s a good goer’,” he remembers. “She’s tall and I thought probably out of my league.” But Jess, wearing a short frock her mum had made, was busy getting to know a couple of girls from Dunedin.
Decorated with streamers, balloons and party lights, the main hall at the Community Centre was primed and ready for action when the doors opened at 8pm, but things started off slow. “When we first got in there it felt a bit like a high school disco,” says Jess. “Everyone was sitting around the edges of the wall.” But with drinks flowing and Dutch courage rising, the party soon got cranking.
Doug spent the night circling the room and handing out prizes, but wasn’t content to just sit back and let romance blossom on his own. He took it upon himself to play matchmaker, swooping in to introduce anyone he saw giving another guest the glad eye across the room, and encouraging others to dance with each other.
But his heart-shaped arrows weren’t needed to make sparks fly between Darren and Jess, who had a boogie together before sitting down for a chat where they immediately hit it off. “You know when you talk to somebody and you get a good feeling?” says Darren. “It was just nice and easy talking to her.” He also made a great first impression. “I got the feeling that he was genuine and he wasn’t like a sleazy guy trying to make moves on ya,” says Jess. “It was quite refreshing to be honest!”
While the official “best kissing” competition was won by a sailor from HMNZS Kiwi and a girl from Invercargill, it was the tonsil hockey outside the hall that had longer legs. Jess and Darren admit to having a sneaky pash towards the end of the night before going home to their separate beds.
Neither knew about the bonfire that was waiting to be lit on the beach for the party animals keen to continue the fun. Doug recalls guests in kilts and long gowns traipsing through the sand in bare feet, and was amused to see hickeys on a few necks. Satisfied that his work was done, he sat by the fire, watching the sun rise.
As the new day dawned, Darren woke with the burning desire to see that tall chatty girl again, so set off into town looking for her. He remembers seeing a couple of sailors doing the walk of shame in their uniforms before finding Jess – and everyone else – at the pub. They played pool, went for a wander down to the wharf and exchanged numbers before departing New Zealand’s original Love Island.
The rest is history. Within a few months Darren had sold up and moved south to be with Jess. They started dairy farming together, got hitched in 2011, and have been a team in marriage and milking virtually ever since.
Romance aside, that first Singles Ball was deemed a roaring success with $8,500 raised for the local medical centre. The way Doug saw it, everyone got a piece of the proverbial pie – local charities received some much-needed money, and because many of the guests would stay after the ball to explore the island, local businesses got a cash injection during their slow winter season.
The August 2005 issue of the Stewart Island News reported that while visiting ladies found local lads a bit shy, “some island men were spotted leaving the venue with new conquests so the efforts of the organisers did not go in vain.” Doug knew he was onto a winner and there was no question that they would put on a repeat performance the following winter. The Singles Ball proved to be so popular that as soon as the new date was announced, accommodation on the island started getting booked out.
Under Doug’s leadership, the Singles Ball ran for seven very successful years, following much the same format except for a few minor tweaks and improvements, and quickly became Southland’s social event of the year. News spread beyond our shores, and “world famous in New Zealand” became world famous full stop, with party people coming from as far away as Ireland, the Netherlands and Canada to attend.
In 2011, The Southland Times credited the ball with “hundreds of hook ups”, and Doug roars with laughter when he talks about one couple who were busted up to no good in the back of a car. But more than just temporary hijinks, it’s the lasting relationships he is the most stoked about, with at least one marriage resulting from each year the ball ran. He reminisces, “some of them would ring me and say ‘Doug, thanks for bloody hooking us up mate because I would never have found this guy anywhere else on the planet’,” he says. “That was brilliant.”
Unfortunately the Singles Ball didn’t last as long as some of the relationships it helped facilitate. After the Christchurch earthquake, Doug left the island to help with the rebuild, and without him there to make things happen, the event fizzled out. He briefly dabbled with the idea of starting a similar bash in Canterbury, struggling with its own post-quake dating drought, but without his trusty team of hardworking volunteers, he didn’t feel like he could pull it off. The ball quietly slipped into the history books, and southern singles turned to newfangled online dating as a way to meet potential mates.
Doug, now 63 and working construction in Cromwell, enjoys looking back on those days with nostalgia-tinted glasses, and says that organising the ball is the thing he is most proud of. Remember the guy who got into too many punch-ups at the pub? Well, during the seven years he ran the ball, he managed to raise over $60,000 for local charities and helped put Stewart Island on the map.
Despite his love for the people and the place, Doug never moved back to Stewart Island. But he still visits several times each year for long yarns and tall beers with old pals.
These days, married couple Jess and Darren (now 48 and 52 respectively) are living on a lifestyle block on the outskirts of Invercargill. While neither has returned to beautiful Rakiura since that fateful night in 2005, this August will be the 20 year anniversary of their rendezvous, and they plan to celebrate by returning to the place where it all began.
First stop, the South Sea Hotel.
