The Tower Lawn at the University of Idaho — usually well-kept and bright green — will be covered in neon colors during the campus paint party Saturday.
The Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, Vandal Athletics, Residence Hall Association (RHA) and Vandal Entertainment (VE) are partnering to bring the two-hour event, Paint U by GlowRage, to UI, which starts at 8 p.m.
The full-service paint party is only for students, and there are enough colors to completely coat 300 Vandals. A DJ will play a two-hour mix of popular and original songs. The first 100 students to attend will receive a white VE tank top.
According to the GlowRage website, the company created its original paint party in Pensacola, Florida. The experience spread to several cities, becoming popular across the entire country. They now put on hundreds of shows per year.
Hagen Hunsaker, VE Concerts Chair and Director of Programming for RHA, said he is excited to see the aftermath of the event, as well as the pictures of students participating.
“I think it will make really cool promo shots for the university,” Hunsaker said. “We do have a lot of university people holding signs and smiling and stuff like that, but no people just having a blast, getting covered in paint.”
Hunsaker said RHA got the idea for the paint party in May, but they put it on the back burner for a while because of cost. He later brought the event back to the attention of several campus administrators who liked the idea.
In the end, different university offices offered to chip in, making the event a reality with planning coming together in June and July, Hunsaker said.
“I’m really excited for the event because we’ve put a lot of work and time into this, and I love getting students together,” he said. “That’s why I got into event programming.”
During the initial stages of the planning process, Hunsaker said VE officials had to figure out the logistics of the event.“There’s limited programming space on campus,” he said. “There’s a lot of different things, which is wonderful, but finding space can be difficult.”
In the past month, Hunsaker has been focused more on promoting the event and finding ways to encourage more students to attend.
He said if the event is successful, there will hopefully be more to come in the future — possibly at different campus locations.
Hunsaker said he is glad the paint party is not exclusive to any type of student, but is rather an event that brings everyone together to mix and mingle.
As for upcoming events, VE is in the process of getting dates set in stone, Hunsaker said, but there are a lot of things in the works.For now, though, Hunsaker is focused on the paint party and encouraging Vandals to attend.
“How often do you say, like, your first week of school you got covered in paint after you’ve finally suffered through the first week of classes,” Hunsaker said. “You survived syllabus week. Now go get covered in paint, and dance around and make a fool of yourself. Have a good time.”
Jordan Wilson can be reached at [email protected]