With most major campus sports and events winding down and finals week looming, University of Wisconsin students can relax and recharge this week with the annual All-Campus Party.
The party, hosted by the Wisconsin Student Alumni Board, is a series of large and small events for students to have a fun and safe time in their last few weeks of school.
Director of the Wisconsin Student Alumni board Brett Hebert said planning of the All-Campus Party is a yearlong project. He said 22 WSAB members paired up to take on the planning of the five signature events, with another team in charge of going after corporate sponsors for the events.
In addition, Hebert said the board formed a student networking committee in charge of getting in contact with other student organizations interested in planning events under the All-Campus Party banner. He said over 90 student organizations were involved this year, a significantly larger number than last year when the board worked with 40 student organizations.
He added working with this many organizations has been a challenge over the past few weeks, but he said he thought the committees did a very good job keeping everything managed. In the coming week he said he is simply hoping for nice weather and a large percentage of UW students to come out to the events.
“The sheer girth of the event has been a challenge,” he said. “We’re really counting on the student body… to go all out in All-Campus Party.”
He added while the first two days of the party, which started April 17, have gone well, he is excited for the bigger events during the week.
Hebert said a student named John Jung founded All-Campus Party 10 years ago. He said Jung felt the campus atmosphere was lacking in the last few weeks of school due to football, basketball and hockey seasons ending as well as the approaching finals week.
“He felt that the Mifflin Block Party was a great alcoholic way to celebrate the end of the year… but a non-alcoholic alternative would be appropriate,” Hebert said.
UW sophomore Jack Crawford said he usually thinks of non-alcoholic events as not being that much fun. He said he would be swinging by the events between classes to see what is going on, but would mostly be looking for food.
“Whatever has food is probably going to catch my eye,” Crawford said.
Not all UW students share this view on non-alcoholic events, however. UW junior Miles Comiskey said he thinks All-Campus Party is a great way for students to take a break and have some fun during the week.
Comiskey, who participated in the All Campus Idol event for the past two years and works with a company arranging much of the audio and visual components for the party, said he is looking forward to relaxing and seeing music acts he has not seen before.
Hebert said the full listing of events can be found on the All-Campus Party website.
