The charity ball committee members sold tickets from 6.30am, but Julie Hurst arrived hours early to ensure she could attend the ball. In a previous year tickets were sold out in 15 minutes. 

She wanted to support the event because her in-laws, Andrew and Lisa Hurst, inspired the ball, after their family needed the use of the Townsville based Ronald McDonald House. 

“They wanted to give something back and decided to do this,” she said. 

After the queue had been served on Monday morning about 300 tickets had been sold, although this included sponsors’ tickets. Three full tables of 10 were still available afterwards. 

The charity ball is to be held on Saturday, February 11. This year the venue has been changed from the civic centre to the Lumen Christi Centre, at Good Shepherd Catholic College.

Committee member Kate Brewster said the reason the venue changed was the size. The change meant 70 extra people could attend the ball. 

“That will help greatly with our ability to raise money for the Ronald McDonald House,” she said. 

“One of our biggest problems is we sell out within minutes, less than 30 minutes. What we hear a lot of is ‘we’d love to go to it but we couldn’t get a ticket.’

“It got us thinking how we could give back to the community that is so generous to us...we can still have the same abilities being able to hang things from the ceiling and being able to decorate the walls. We hope it’s still the same ‘wow factor’, that’s what we aim towards.” 

Calculating the price of tickets and not factoring costs, the additional seats would generate an additional $10,500. This would not consider additional bidding in the silent auctions. 

Ms Brewster would not reveal the charity ball’s theme. 

“Sorry, I would love to tell you, but we can’t let you in just yet.” 

The ticket design appeared to be a tropical floral pattern. It was speculated by some waiting that it was a clue to a tropical island theme.