This year, 5,248 first year students participated in the KEI week. That is slightly fewer than in 2014, the best year so far (which saw 5,308 first year students take part). The women outnumber the men: 54.2 to 45.8 per cent. Eight per cent of the KEI participants are foreign students.
Almost one in six of the first year students is under eighteen. They are (technically) not allowed to buy beer, which means they drank soda instead of the approximately 16,000 beers that were poured during the Grand Opening at the Grote Markt on Monday night.
On Tuesday during the Night of the Songs, each dancing KEI participant lost approximately two liters of sweat. All in all, that is 85 bathtubs full of bodily fluids from that night on the Grote Markt.
As the KEI organisers know, you can use duct tape for almost anything. They used almost 2,000 metres of the stuff. In addition, approximately 5,000 metres of barrier tape was used. That is enough to encircle the Grote Markt 25 times over.
The KEI is also about sex, drugs, and rock & roll. The organisers distributed 7,000 condoms. How many of them were actually used is not known.
The nineteen different events during the week were made possible with the help of 200 crew members and 1,250 volunteers. We applaud them.
The information market at the Vismarkt consisted of approximately 110 organisations, and 40 associations and clubs took part in the KEI Parade on Tuesday.
Not all first year students already had a room in Groningen or were able to stay with friends or family for some much needed rest. Almost 140 KEI participants had to sleep it off at the Usva and the KEI hostel.
The average KEI participant walked 3.5 kilometres during the pub crawl. This burned no fewer than 175 calories. But anybody who thinks that means they can let loose would be mistaken: anyone who drank more than two beers (and who didn’t?) gained weight.
Want to see more? You can view our photo gallery of KEI week 2016 here.