It seems as if the Union Programming Council keeps churning out one late-night hit after another.
This time it was the Black Pumpkin Affair, which brought in more than 2,500 people to the Union on Friday night-the third-straight time that UPC has brought in a crowd of at least 2,000 or more this year.
Last year’s efforts brought in about 900 people, according to Charlotte Tyler, community service chairwoman for UPC and head organizer for the Black Pumpkin Affair.
The community service aspect of the event was collecting canned food for the Utah Food Bank, Tyler said.
Students who brought a canned good got into the event for free, and those who did not paid $1 to get in.
Although no official count had been made as of the weekend, UPC collected nearly a “room-full” of cans and $323 for the food bank, Tyler said.
Activities included a spook alley, a service project, a dance, a hypnotist, free bowling and billiards along with two screenings of “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.”
“Every single activity was as full as it could have been,” she said.
Tyler says she attributes the turnout of the event, along with the two Crimson Nights put on by UPC this year, to co-sponsorship by numerous organizations on and off campus.
Friday night’s event had eight co-sponsors from the campus: the Associated Students of the University of Utah, ASUU Presenter’s Office, the Residence Halls Association, Sigma Gamma Chi, the Latter-day Saints Student Association, the Bennion Community Service Center, the Student Alumni Association and some involvement from Greek Row.
Instead of just catering to a few of those groups, the organizing committee got “all of those [organizations] involved…so they all attended,” Tyler said. Besides the many campus groups attending the event, the Black Pumpkin Affair was also open to nonstudents.
Zoraya Gappmaier and her friends came from Brigham Young University to attend.
“We just thought we’d check it out,” she said.
“This year, we just put up ads all over the place…The word just got around,” Tyler said. “I couldn’t have been more pleased with the success…Nothing like that can be pulled off without so many people involved.”