Shavonne Rogers
Staff Writer
Students here had a break from end-of-semester stress with a night full of fun, food, music and games at Campus West for the first Carniverne, a carnival event organized in place of Winter Formal.
Six food trucks serving tacos, hot dogs and fries, frozen treats and funnel cakes filled the air and students’ stomachs.
Ten game booths, including a bean toss, bowling ball roll, quarterback toss and hi-strike were open to students and a sticker was the prize for each game.
Stickers could be exchanged later for prizes such as dinner and a movie, Knott’s Berry Farm tickets, Snapchat spectacles and a pair of Beats headphones.
“It just lets us relax,” Jasmin Amezcua, sophomore sociology major said. “Right now we are stressed out with finals and everything … and I just feel like it lets you have fun and be interactive with a lot of people,” she said.
The new Carniverne replaced Winter Formal, which for years had been poorly attended.
“We had this huge budget and would dedicate so much money and no one would show up,” Janelle Pedroza, sophomore biology major and event co-chairwoman for the Campus Activities Board, said.
Pedroza said the organizers worked hard on Carniverne, and they did things differently to attract more students to Carniverne.
“We advertised a lot on social media,” Pedroza said. “(We) targeted our friends and from there it just spread like wildfire across campus,” she said.
Pedroza said she hopes to see Carniverne become a yearly tradition.
And considering the turnout was more than 10 times that of Winter Formal, organizers said Carniverne probably will return next year.
Osvaldo Jaime, junior business administration major and CAB co-chairman of major events, said Carniverne had met its goal of more than 600 students attending.
“Having run out of 250 fanny packs within the first 30 minutes, I believe that it was a huge success,” Jaime said. “We wanted to start something new, something that can be continued in the future. I believe that this event will be one to look forward to every year.”
Shavonne Rogers can be reached at shavonne.rogers@laverne.edu.
Shavonne Rogers