Flashing lights, upbeat music and gamer noises greeted students at the nighttime Laser Tag event on Friday, Nov. 6.
Teams competed in the Vandals Entertainment’s event in the Memorial Gym 7 p.m.—11 p.m. Around 40 teams signed up, and the staff had to adjust the logistics, which took longer than expected.
Students signed up with their team name, added up to four people in their group and one of the group member’s names and phone numbers.
Erin Noble, the UI Performing Arts coordinator, gave each team that signed up a time slot. The teams played in rounds to compete for King of the Hill.
In King of the Hill, teams compete against each other to reach 300 points before the time runs out. If no one makes it to 300 points, whoever has the most points by the end of the round is the winner.
A person gets nine points every three seconds from a glowing box in the middle of the arena. The team with control over the box is the “king.”
The players shot each other three to five times with laser guns, containing 24 rounds each for points. The teams got around five minutes to compete, so all would get a chance to play.
Leilani Fugere, Tekla Shaw, Andrew Botterbusch and Cade Disselkoen created the team “Winners.” They enjoyed having a break from school and spending time with friends. The game was more fun than they thought it would be and easy for all skill levels.
The team said some changes that could be made to the layout would be a tighter space to play because it was too open. They also said there should be more barricades.
Shaw said four players were perfect —less than four would be tedious and exhausting, and more than four would be too much.
“Future events should be unique and something (students) don’t have easy access to,” said Botterbusch. “You can go out and play soccer but not laser tag.”
Noble said Vandal Entertainment searched for COVID-19 safe events to put on for the students and decided on laser tag. This game allows students to be safely distanced from each other with masks and wipe down the equipment after each round. Students were encouraged to keep the headbands and laser guns used in the rounds together. Yoseph Alamoudi, his cousin Aziz Alamoudi, Mubarak Alsomali and Moaz Mahmod created the team “Nameless.” They heard about this event from a group chat they are a part of.
Alsomali said other laser game tags with a different mission and style rather than just one would be good next time.
Mahmod said he would like to see bubble football as a future event.
Some future events to look forward to are a daytime mindfulness event, a Thanksgiving survival pack before students leave and virtual events during the online portion of the semester.
Noble said it will be challenging to find social events during the online portion of the semester, but to keep an eye out and do research on lists of fun events from companies or websites.
Kim Stager can be reached [email protected] on Twitter @journalismgoals.