The ball didn't have many people, but that didn't make it any less social. In fact, since the guests were closely connected to Abel, the party was quite harmonious.
Abel did his absolute best to prepare for the food this time. He had wine, the grandmaster's wine, water spirit fruit juice, and dishes garnished with "rabbit essence." Many of them were synthesized from the Horadric Cube, not once but twice. This was about as good as it could get. There weren't many people, again, but Abel was treating them like they were the most important people on the whole continent.
Of course, he could choose to lower his standards. He could have people coming here because he's done favors for them. There were a bunch of them like that out there--just the law-defying wizards alone, and that would've taken up most that up.