COMMERCE-Imagine if you will a picturesque college campus, with the sun shining down on peaceful grassy walkways, columned entrances to buildings named after distinguished alumni, and sloping pathways dotted with students headed to class.
Now that you’ve got that picture fixed in your head, place a stage in the middle of that campus, add in hundreds or even a few thousand screaming students packed around that stage, and a large assortment of commemorative t-shirts, and you’ve set the stage for this year’s block party on the Texas A&M University-Commerce campus, held at 5 pm on September 7.
Shiloh Burney, director of marketing and promotions for the Club, shared on what exactly the block party is.
“The block party is a concert that we put on for the students. It’s the biggest event the club has all year,” said Burney. “We provide food, rides (such as last year when we had a mechanical bull), and we bring in local artists and try to get a big artist, that way the students have something to do right when school starts, and it’s just kind of a way to jump start the semester.”
This is the 3rd annual block party, with the first in 2010. According to Burney, the turnout for that first year wasn’t very good because it was a new event and awareness for the event wasn’t very high, but that the second iteration of the block party was much more successful, with the Club selling out of community tickets before the event and close to 1,500 students attending. She and the rest of the block party organizers are hoping for an even larger turnout this year, with 2,000 students expected.
With this many students expected, the organizers had to find the right location for the party. This year’s party will be held in the same location as last year’s, according to Burney, on the grassy area between the Sam Rayburn Student Center and the soon-to-be named McFarland Science Building.
Larger turnout for the block party also means the Club is freed to bring in bigger artists, such as last year’s Eli Young Band, as the headliner, with several other bands and community events planned before the main concert.
Though pressed for details on who this year’s main performer would be, Burney wouldn’t budge, but she did give a few hints.
“We can’t release the name of the artist yet, but I can say that we are veering away from the Texas country lineup that we usually had in the past.”
And a bigger block party requires more planning to be successful. Shiloh expounded on the process the staff goes through to host a party of this magnitude.
“We start planning this event months in advance, and we have a board that is constructed of different people across the university. When we meet we discuss what we think the students would like better, compared to last year’s event, and we just try to better the event from years previous.”
If you’d like to get involved with the block party, visit CAB (the Campus Activities Board) or see Joel Jopson, the Club coordinator, at the Student Center. Tickets for the party can be made at the student center as well.