Hopkins's annual Fall Fest drew consistent crowds to its events this past weekend, despite inclement weather. Due to expected downpours this past Friday and Saturday, a number of events, including the Culture Block Party and the football tailgate, were cancelled and several outdoor events were relocated indoors. However, Fall Fest organizers reported that turnout this year was comparable to that of last year's, which did not face any inclement weather.
"It was consistent from last year," Janet Kirsch, Campus Programming Coordinator, said. "Every event was packed."
According to Kirsch, the decision to cancel the football tailgate was made the day before the event.
"On Friday we saw the weather and it looked like it was going to pour all day," Kirsch said. "We didn't want to take the chance."
Joseph Colon, Assistant Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, cited the large size of the event as the reason why the Culture Block Party was not relocated indoors.
"No way you can get over 50 vendors indoors," Colon said.
A rock climbing wall was one the number of large attractions scheduled to be at the block party and prevented its relocation. The event has been postponed to April 2012, a week prior to Spring Fair.
Among the planned outdoor events that were relocated indoors included the Movie on the Beach, which was relocated to Mudd Hall Auditorium and Welcome to My City, an event to advertise to Hopkins students cultural, entertainment and volunteer opportunities in Baltimore, which was relocated from the Beach to the Glass Pavilion.
"The Movie on the Beach would have been more popular," Kirsch said about the effects of the relocation.
Junior Teno Boone, one of the chief organizers for the Welcome to My City event, felt his event managed to improve over its performance at last years Fall Fest.
"The turn out was great on both the vendor and the student ends of the events!" Boone wrote in an email to the The News-Letter.
"We had 23 vendors come out and had between 200 to 250 students attend the fair. This was an improvement form last year's event, which didn't get the turnout that was expected."
Unfortunately, due to complications with permits because of the relocation, representatives from 92Q, a Baltimore hip hop radio station, were unable to attend.
Straying from years past, Fall Fest began a day early on Thursday and lasted a total of four days.
One of the other notable changes to Fall Fest this year was the relocation of the Midnight Breakfast from the Fresh Food Cafe to the Ralph O'Connor Recreation Center. University officials cited the lack of space as to the primary motivation for the move.
"We changed the location of [the Midnight Breakfast] to accommodate more people," Kirsch said. "The FFC's capacity is in the 500 and we had 700 [attend this year]."
Other additions included a Hopkins trivia game at Nolan's, glow in the dark mini-golf, laser tag and collaborative efforts with the Homewood Museum, the Office of Multicultural Affairs and Baltimore Scholars. The Presidential 2.5K Fun Run and Midnight Breakfast were also zero waste events as part of an effort by Hopkins to behavior more environmentally friendly.
University officials were pleased by weekend's turnout.
"I was really excited for [Fall Fest]," Kirsch said. "I was glad everything went well."
In the future, the University hopes to maintain the four day schedule.
"My goal was to still have it for four days and maybe have an event Sunday afternoon to cap the whole weekend together," Kirsch said.
