This past weekend, the CAP Center hosted the annual Bucknell “Fall Fest” to celebrate the beginning of a new season and the beginning of the new school year.
An assortment of carnival-themed games, rides and food trucks populated Sojka Lawn; students spent the evening hopping from one ride to the next and indulging in sugary refreshments.
For the enjoyment of the students, there was a plethora of foods to indulge in such as funnel cakes, fried Oreos, cotton candy, fried pickles, Bison dip and cactus taters.
Providing the soundtrack to the fun and games was a series of four student bands—Kai Li, The Priorities, Bayasgalan and Mayday—each of whom performed a mini-setlist over the course of the night.
First-year and music enthusiast Giselle Mayer couldn’t take her eyes off the stage; she “absolutely loved singing along” to some of the covers sung, and when she didn’t know the words, “it didn’t matter” as she just basked in the atmosphere of the live performance. As a singer herself, Mayer knows the pressures of the stage; she “admired how well each band established a personality” distinct from that of the other groups.
Though Mayer deeply misses performing with bandmates and friends from home, being able to view live performances like these was almost healing, in a sense. “I miss my own experience, but it was so cool to be able to see other bands also just starting out.”
And while the planning is the job of the CAP Center, the enjoyment is the job of the students.
Clara Henry ’27, was drawn to the more traditional aspects of the carnival—the rides. They got a thrill out of strapping themselves into each and every ride that spun, twirled or flipped, especially the Tilt-A-Whirl. In the end, Henry couldn’t choose a favorite— they “liked [how] the rides made it feel like a real fair, just on a smaller scale”—but ultimately decided that the real allure of the evening was the “feeling of nostalgia” woven throughout the event like the Halloween carnivals of their youth had come to Bucknell.
