Hundreds gathered in Curry Student Center Wednesday for the annual Springfest carnival.
Hosted by the Council for University Programs, or CUP, the carnival featured five different activities for undergraduate students.
Officially titled the “Cuplympics Carnival,” the upcoming summer Olympic Games inspired this year’s theme.
After checking in at Curry Crossroads, students were given a paper “passport” to collect stamps on, with each completed activity earning them one stamp. Stamps could then be redeemed for merchandise in the Senate Chambers room.
“This year we decided to do a bit more of a system with the merch so people weren’t just automatically running to the merch,” said Taylie Kawakami, a fourth-year communication studies and graphic and information design combined major and CUP’s director of design. “That way, people were fully engaged with all the different activities.”
With passports in hand, students quickly raced to the different stations for stamps. From inflatable sports games in Snell Quad to a cultural fair in the indoor quad, participants spread out in and around Curry to engage in the festivities. Other activities included a collaborative mural in the mezzanine, a dance party in AfterHours and an open game room.
“It was cool because I got to see a bunch of people that I’ve seen around campus but haven’t talked to in a while,” said Luca Sharbani, a fourth-year computer science major who attended the carnival.
About 30 minutes into the carnival, a long line of students had formed, all eager to redeem their passport stamps for Springfest and CUP-branded apparel.
Introduced as “The Victory Collection,” this year’s Springfest merchandise featured athletic-inspired hats, hoodies, t-shirts, jerseys and exclusive CUP-themed stuffed huskies.
“We wanted to make sure that everything we were creating was going to be really comfortable and high quality,” Kawakami said. “We were making sure that students were getting pieces that they’d want to rewear and would be comfortable rewearing and had designs that really caught their eye.”
With so much interest, CUP ran out of merchandise in about an hour. While some activities like the dance party quickly cleared out, others like the cultural fair continued to host visitors throughout the night
“It’s so fulfilling to be able to see all of these months of work come to fruition and see like, ‘Oh, people are really enjoying themselves. They’re wearing the merch we designed. They’re loving the concept of everything. They’re having fun,’” Kawakami said. “That’s really our main goal, is to make sure that people are having fun on campus.”
