ACE Mardi Gras Was a Boring Gras

­On Thursday, Feb. 24, the Office of Student Involvement and Leadership (OSIL) held one of its monthly Rollins After Dark events.

This month’s event had a Mardi Gras theme, complete with colorful beads, flamboyant hats and masks and just a little bit of Cajun cuisine. As usual, the party was held in Dave’s Down Under and ran from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Also per usual, the event lacked attendance. At 10:30, there were less than 20 people milling around Dave’s, eating the food and listening to the DJ pound out Mardi Gras mu­sic. This comes as little surprise seeing as how most All Campus Events (ACE) and OSIL events are poorly attended. Despite their best efforts, including good food and loud music, not much enthusiasm came from those efforts.

Carlos Sanchez ‘12, a mem­ber of the OSIL team, said that the most difficult part of putting together these sorts of parties was finding a location to use. Their fallback is usually Dave’s since it can hold the most peo­ple and allows them to have live music and food.

Sanchez added, “as far as themes go, it’s a pretty linear process.” He said that it was only natural to have a Mardi Gras theme this month since Mardi Gras is right around the corner.

He admitted that bringing people together is a challenge. “We have to find out a better way to get exposure,” he sighed, looking at a bulletin board hang­ing in Dave’s that had at least 50 fliers hanging off of it.

It is difficult to advertise much at Rollins due to the amount of fliers hanging every­where.

Sanchez said that he be­lieves most people just ignore the bulletin boards now because there is too much tacked onto them for someone to sit down and read.

On the plus side, it did seem that the few people who were there enjoyed themselves.

“The music’s great, the Mar­di Gras theme is awesome, and I love ACE!” shouted Samantha Finan ’13 over the DJ.

“I just really like the music, and the food is really good,” said Finan’s friend Katie Perry ’13. So, it seems that despite the poor advertising and minimal attendance, people still had fun.

OSIL put a lot of effort into decorating the room and pro­viding the guests with party fa­vors. There were enough beads to decorate a Mardi Gras float and enough colorful masks and hats to go around.

Maybe by next month, OSIL will have solved its advertising problem so that Rollins After Dark will have a larger audience for their events.