Author: Taylor-Anne Esparza
Flower headbands, fringe tank tops, face paint and even an animal costume took over Thorne Patio last Saturday night for Occidental’s last dance of the year, Full Moon. Programming Board decided to try something different with the dance, releasing information about the event piece by piece and not posting the full details of the dance in advance. By writing statements on the Facebook page for the event such as “You’ll know what you need to know when you need to know it,” students were left in suspense until two days before the dance.
Programming Board members Alex Miller (senior) and Maria Stewart (senior) were the main coordinators of the event and hoped to try a unique marketing strategy. Rather than dictating a specific theme and attire to the students, as is done for Toga or Glow, they wanted the students to be creative and show what they believed “Full Moon” to inspire.
“You can interpret Full Moon however you want to,” Miller said before the event. “Full Moon can mean going to space or coming from the future; it can mean that you’re participating in some bacchanalian rite; it can mean that you’ve dumped glitter on yourself. Whatever it means, I want people to go for it.”
The Programming Board eventually provided a dress code that spanned almost any attire, stating “Think Coachella. Think EDC. Think Halloween or Venice Beach or whatever.” The majority of students took this information and ran with it.
“Doing a slow marketing roll out was meant to build hype through generating some sort of intrigue,” Miller said. “It’s definitely a risk because it’s asking for an investment of faith on behalf of the Oxy student sifting through a million event invitations on Facebook.”
Due to the mystery of the event, many of the students may not have been aware the dance ended at one instead of two when Occidental dances normally end. Whether or not this can be attributed to the lack of information until a few days before the event, the majority of the crowd did not arrive at the dance on Thorne Patio until at least 11 p.m., which only allowed them two hours at the dance. There were approximately 400 students in attendance.
Although there may have been some confusion regarding details, DJ Dielan, Dylan Leong (senior), attracted an audience eager to support a student DJ.
“I thought Dylan did a great job keeping the beats and energy up,” Mischa DiBattiste (sophomore) said. “[The music] was different than any of the other dances I’ve been to at Oxy.”
However, straying from the norm can be a dangerous path when students usually have specific expectations in terms of music. Not everyone minded the change of pace from the usual fast paced hip-hop music to the slower techno beats.
“I’d say Full Moon was rockin’!” Dylan Sittig (senior) said. “I think all the seniors really embraced that it was our last school dance and, because of that, everyone came ready to have a good time. It was a blast, hands down.”
With the goal of the dance stated on the Facebook event as “Let’s Get Weird,” Occidental students did just that. As the last dance of the year and final exams on the brink, “Full Moon” drew out a little craziness in everyone.
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