Unless you happened to have walked by the Gilman tunnel last Wednesday, April 6th between 10 p.m. and midnight, you would have missed the JHU Arts Festival’s Opening Party.
More fair than party, the tunnel offered considerable amounts of pink cotton candy, popcorn blanketed with dizzying amounts of butter, an assortment of sugary sodas lining the tables and an ice cream cart filled with oldies-but-goodies such as chocolate éclairs and cookie sandwiches.
The copious proportions of nostalgic snacks were all exorbitantly offered to any student, or any other passerby, at no cost.
All that seemed to be missing from the event was a Ferris Wheel. However, the party’s interactive entertainment veered far from its carnival-inspired gastronomy.
The space was dim, with colorful lights dotting the ceiling at random intervals.
The echoing walls made for an excellent arena for the pulsing dancing music the festival organizers played, ranging from the expected Top 40 hits to lesser known electronic tunes that peaked the interest of many, who meandered toward the DJ. Glow sticks, generously handed to anyone who wanted, hung from the necks of the few brave souls who decided to move with the music.
It was refreshing to see the billboards in the Gilman tunnel, usually covered with outdated flyers, primed for the party.
Signs advertising upcoming events, arts-related or not, lined the walls.
There was a collection of student artwork and photography and a couple of gaming systems set up for students to play their favorite video games projected on one part of the tunnel wall.
The truly novel part of the whole night was the Digital Media Center’s Interactive Light Painting.
The piece of digital artwork, “uses micro-controllers, sensors and LED lights to alter the visual environment based on input from participants,” according to the JHU Arts Festival website. Framed in the center of the tunnel, the artwork moved with the body language of partygoers, who studied it with awe.
Like many Hopkins events, especially endemic to this past weekend’s events, the JHU Arts Festival Opening Party was another example of an idea that had much potential and poor execution.
It was a shame to see such thought-out and innovative plans for a party fall on deaf ears, as there were seemed to be only a spattering of students that attended the event.
The staggeringly low attendance made for an awkward ambience as students walked through the tunnel wondering, “Is this it?” Rachel Cohen, a freshman, remarked, “The Gilman tunnel thing was a cool concept. It definitely seems like a fun place to hold an event but I think it needs to be advertised better.”
Or, as Emily Faxon, a sophomore, more succinctly (and more harshly) put it, “It would have been good,” she paused, “if it were good.”
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