A university spent nearly £22,000 organising a charity flashmob dance which only raised £5,000 in donations, it has emerged.
The embarrassing admission was made in a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, revealing De Montfort University in Leicester spent a whopping £15,582 on hiring a PA system, and a £2,148 on promotional banners.
DMU forked out another £1,400 on hiring a film company to record the event, the FOI made by the Leicester Mercury found.
The charity flashmob dance which raised £5,000
More than a thousand students and staff from the university participated in the dance last November, organised to raise money for charities LOROS and PROSTaid. The event was the brainchild of Professor Dominic Shellard, vice chancellor of DMU, as part of the executive quest challenge, which required chief execs in Leicestershire to do "something extraordinary that pushed them out of their comfort zone while helping their chosen charities".
The dancers jigged along to Bonnie Tyler's Holding Out For A Hero, with the video being premiered at a "red carpet affair".
At the time, Shellard said: "I am proud of this video because it shows how the DMU community has come together, helped raise lots of money for two important local charities and had a lot of fun in the process.
A spokesperson for the university said: "De Montfort University holds many events aimed at enhancing our reputation, while also supporting one of our strategic aims such as establishing our academic credibility, helping the local community or making the university distinctive.
"Most of these events do not raise money, but they play an important part in sustaining student recruitment at the university during a turbulent time for higher education which has seen many universities struggle to meet the targets set by Government. De Montfort University exceeded its targets by about 25 students this year."
To donate visit the university's Just Giving page.