Springapalooza and the Cosmic Film Festival are two events that were canceled due to campus closing. Photo by Roshan Khichi | Mercury Staff
Following UTD’s transition to online classes, the Student Union & Activities Advisory Board canceled all of their remaining in-person spring semester events. Responsible for various campus events, including live shows featuring musical artists and comedians on-campus, SUAAB is now hoping to bring the same experiences to the student body through digital means.
Upon
receiving University President Richard Benson’s announcement regarding the use
of online classes, SUAAB events including Springapalooza — UTD’s post-spring
break celebration — were cancelled. SUAAB executive chair Madison Foster said
that without in-advance warning, they had to act fast to properly adjust.
SUAAB
held their first online event on April 9 through Microsoft Teams, featuring DJ
B-Rockin in a live, online DJ event digitally attended by 60 people. Despite
the challenge of organizing the event, Foster said she was proud to see her
team organize in such a short time.
“Whether
an event is good or not (is) not really measured by the number of people that
are attending; It’s the environment that you’re in, what you’re given to work
with and how you handle that,” Foster said. “We’ve really stepped up. I’m
really proud of the event planners that are on my team, and I think that
they’ve been doing great work.”
Despite the sudden
cancellation of their upcoming events, assistant director of student life
programs Dominique Spikes said SUAAB was able to avoid losing funds. With the
novel coronavirus affecting events and venues nationwide, Spikes said most
vendors either lowered or waived their cancellation fees.
As
opposed to outright cancellation, some events, such as the Cosmic Film
Festival, have been adjusted to be held remotely. The festival, a yearly event that
screens student films at the Meteor Theater, will now stream to viewers’
computers on April 22.
The
past year has seen various celebrities, including Matthew Broussard and Next
Town Down, perform at UTD. Due to SUAAB events now being provided through
digital means, Foster said they would be able to work with celebrity performers
who would’ve been too expensive otherwise.
“We
are trying to book big names, as big as we possibly can during this time. It’s
good for us that artists are taking price cuts because they’re not coming to
campus. That is something that we’re more easily able to work with using our
budget. Right now, we’re working with an artist we usually would not be able to
afford,” Foster said. “We’re trying to maintain as much of a sense of normalcy
as possible.”