Spring Awakening
After a spring that has so far been characterized by flooding, rain, and aggravation, it was a nice change of pace to have a warm and sunny day for the Spring Carnival, which took place last Friday on South Campus. Many students took advantage of University Day and their day off from classes to enjoy the activities, food and music.
The Spring Carnival has been a traditional event at UMass Lowell for over 25 years and occurs each spring on University Day. For the last several years, the student-run Campus Activities Programming Association (CAPA) has run the event. This year’s Spring Carnival featured activities booths set up by the different clubs on campus and a Battle of the Bands competition.
“Everything went really great. We had 71 clubs helping out, which is the most we’ve ever had,” said Amanda Turner, Traditions Chair for CAPA. “It was great to see the student body come out and not just sit around in their dorms on such a nice day.”
The activities booths set up by clubs allowed students to play games, win free stuff and just have a good time. Some of the clubs participating were the Physical Therapy Club, who gave neck massages, the UML Emergency Medical Services, who ran a beer goggles obstacle course, the Society of Physics Students, who set up small science demonstrations, and representatives from the Inn Conference Center, who had a dunk tank. Some other activities taking place were airbrush tattooing, mini-golf and a barbeque.
Corey Prescott, a student at UML, spoke about how much fun he was having at the event while he waited in line at the Criss Cross, an obstacle course where people get inside of giant inflatable balls and race through an inflatable track.
“It’s been quite an enjoyable day,” Prescott said. “I had a nice snow cone that was free. It was great.”
Aside from the student clubs and activities was a stage set up for the Battle of the Bands competition, which was also being broadcast by WUML. The bands Mayfly, Mavity, Clara Berry & the Handsome Derelicts, Venezuela and The Advocates all performed, competing for a $500 first place prize and a 20-minute encore set.
“It’s the second year for Battle of the Bands and our second year broadcasting with WUML,” said Robert Pooley, the Concerts and Comedy Chair for CAPA. “It’s always a pleasure to work closely with WUML. We try to build on the Battle of the Bands each year and this year was great.”
The Advocates finished first overall, beating out Mavity and Mayfly for second and third respectively. The show at the Spring Carnival was the third round of the Battle of the Bands and featured the remaining five student bands that had moved on from the listening sessions and live audition rounds. Bands were judged by five CAPA members in the categories of performance, professionalism and skill, which also featured subcategories like energy, crowd reaction and preparation. Both the student crowd and the bands were enthusiastic about the event.
“It was awesome,” said Mike Papa, the guitarist from Mavity. “We haven’t played outside before. It was a great day for it and we had a lot of fun,” Papa said.
Andrew Torossian, the singer and guitarist for The Advocates, shared similar sentiments about the production.
“I’m glad we got to play. We played [the Battle of the Bands] last year and a lot more people came out to see us this year,” Torossian said. “Overall, it was great”
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