The 4,000 students who ventured onto College Green this weekend were met with everything from an inflatable game of Twister to a burrito-eating contest.
This Saturday the Social Planning and Events Committee hosted the first Fall Festival, event that showcased student group booths, recreational activities and live entertainment.
The idea to host a fall festival branched off of last year’s “No Place Like Penn” fall event — a similar but less-popular festival. Fall Festival, according to SPEC on-stage entertainment chairman Nick Pangallo, a College senior, was to “get students more excited and to get student groups more involved” than the event last year.
“[Fall Festival] exceeded our expectations in every way,” Pangallo said of the turnout this weekend. “The whole festival went off with no problems and the student body was very receptive.”
Early in the afternoon, dozens of student groups set up tables that showcased their causes. Canadians@Penn sold poutine — a traditional Canadian french-fry dish— and Penn’s Society for International Development sold fair trade goods to raise awareness for Fair Trade Month.
Other booths provided more creative entertainment. The Vietnamese Student Association painted pumpkins and Asian-interest sorority Sigma Psi Zeta and the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity told fortunes.
One of the festival’s major events, Battle of the Bands, attracted large audiences for each of the six 20-minute sets that took place from 2:15 to 5:45 p.m. Sex Panther took the first-place title, but all bands agreed that the performances were successful.
“You can’t really complain about any event that allows you to rage during the day in a socially acceptable manner,” Mask and Wig band member Charles Lynch, a College and Wharton junior, said.
The festival concluded with a much-anticipated performance by Super Mash Bros, a California DJ-ing duo whose claim to fame is combining popular 90s hits with modern chart-toppers.
Although one “Bro” was absent, the other, Nick Fenmore, engaged the crowd, giving hundreds of students a pre-midterm hoorah.
“I came for the hot Ivy League Jewish girls,” Fenmore said jokingly.
SPEC, on the other hand, looked to Super Mash Bros for a different reason.
“We wanted a DJ dance party,” Pangallo said. “Super Mash Bros was our first choice going in and we felt they were really popular with the Penn student body.”
This year’s overall success has set a high standard for years to come.
“Fall Festival has some serious potential in the next few years,” College senior David Loewy said. “This year [was] sweet, but it can only get better from here.”
This article has been corrected to reflect that Nick Pangallo is SPEC's on-stage entertainment chairman.
