An impulse appointment on the way to a pub crawl led to 14 years of Stephen Hall-Jones starting the university year with a thump.
While Mr Hall-Jones was walking past an Otago University Students' Association executive meeting to drink with friends in 1986, president Peter Reidie spotted him, and knowing some of his background in event organising, said ``he would make a good capping controller''.
He was soon the first social activities manager in the country, in charge of student events full time, and
the association was able to avoid some of the blunders of others around the country, he said.
"Before that it would be a different person every year and you'd lose some of that institutional knowledge.
"One year Canterbury forgot about GST. They thought that they were doing really well, but actually ran up a huge loss.''
For Orientation in 1987, his ``radical'' change was to extend celebrations from one week to two, so
organisers could get more of their wishlist.
Events like sports day and the toga party were introduced to fill in the schedule.
Orientation and alcohol were closely connected, which resulted in a tanker of Speight's parking outside the union building during festivities.
The drinking age at the time was 20 and students were sold tickets with the shows, which they could exchange for drinks.
He admits the loophole was not likely to work now.
"It was sort of a wee understanding we had with police. They were just happy we were thinking about it at all.''
In those years, the union building was the centre of activities.
Bands played inside at night and other activities filled the lawn during the day.
In the days before health and safety, he remembers one tent city starting with a shock.
"Someone was putting a tent peg in, one of those deep ones, and it went straight into a power cable and the ground just erupted. The power all around the place went down.
"That was a good way to start Orientation.''
Mr Hall-Jones was also in charge of all other student association events, but Orientation was the main source of income.
"It was the thing that made money and you'd spent it throughout the year. It definitely got bigger throughout those years, largely because varsity got bigger.''
The union concerts could hold somewhere close to 2000 people at the time, which was the mark for ticket sales.
In 2000, he left the role, when he was offered the post of clubs and societies manager, and soon after he became the association's general manager, until 2003.
He did not need to leave campus for his current role, as the Otago Business School's information science department manager.
He still looks back at his years of Orientation with nostalgia.
"It had a real vibe about it. I just liked the way the whole thing worked.''