Happy Halloween, Bennington. To those who don’t celebrate, happy drinking. To those who don’t drink, happy weekend of watching everyone make fools out of themselves. Cheers! However you chose to celebrate last weekend, here’s the official recap:
Day Friday, October 28th, 2022
House Fels
Theme Welcome Home! (Coraline)
Rating 1.5/5
“The party’s over!“
“Why?”
“Maya’s tired.“
“Oh, okay. Fair.”
Fels’s last words, facing its noble death before Campo could even arrive to kill it
Wait, there were two parties this weekend? Yes, while you lay in hibernation for Swalloween, the rest of us dedicated partygoers made the noble journey to Third Street. It did not necessarily pay off, but was arguably worth it for something to do. Most of the campus did not know about this party until the posters went up the day before, and the few who did were very confused to find out it was not in fact a haunted house. This was apparently the original plan circulating, as was ancient Fels tradition, but who were they kidding? If any house was going to pull together an actual last-minute haunted house experience, it would be a colonial. (My fantasy football pick: Booth as QB trained by Canfield.) (Bton translation: QB stands for Quarterback.) (Okay, quarterbacks are, like, the Laura Walkers of the football team.) (Football is a sport played by two teams of eleven players with an oval ball on a rectangular field.)
It is impossible to read the room at these 70s house parties, especially when the entire party is dependent on you to curate the energy for several consecutive hours, but Fels’s social chair and resident DJ Maya did well considering. Consequently, the party had some great moments, if you didn’t blink and miss it. Although, it was sort of hard to miss anything in the uncharacteristically bright lighting and bare walls. The anticipation of Swalloween led to a smaller turnout than normal, or at least a less enthusiastic one. The Canfield common room live sets also overshadowed the event by giving everyone an opportunity to dance before/during the official party.
Following Fels’s most recent surprising success, Friday’s party was the most Fels ever. By which I mean, it was haphazard, sparsely populated, and net neutral. If you were determined to have fun, Fels would sustain that high at a plateau. It wasn’t a vibe killer, nor by any means was it a vibe improver. Then again, if you expected anything more, that’s on you– definitely not our fault for saying to keep Fels on your radar last time… Don’t trust everything you read on the Internet.
Day Saturday, October 29th, 2022
House Swan
Theme Swalloween (Ouija boards?)
Rating 5/5
You know that void that grows in your stomach at the end of a party night? The lack of fulfillment, disappointment that you can’t really source? That void was filled last Saturday by the most crowded common room of the ‘20s.
Congratulations, Swan, for getting everyone off their asses for Halloweekend! This party was fantastic and half of that success is due to student turnout. It looked a little questionable at first, but only because of the typical hour-long wait for the crowds to pile in. There has not been an official party this packed since the pandemic began– it was almost hard to breathe (spooky…) at the peak. The Social Contract was upheld; if it is Halloween, we have to go hard at least once, and if we all do that, it will be fun, because it will be dense, and if it is fun, people will stay, and it will remain dense, and so on. Supposedly every party used to be like this, and Bennington is only now finding itself again for some reason– necessity, perhaps. And not that a tradition like Swalloween needed it, but the promotion was adorable: little paper invitations slipped under our doors and Ouija board posters across campus.
Costumes added to the fun too. Disguises encourage staring where there would usually be ignoring, and staring encourages dancing/talking where usually there would be silence. “Who are you??” followed by “Who are you supposed to be?” rang throughout the night. The music itself was pretty standard, mostly the classics but all danceable. It was adequately loud too, when it was playing. There were some speaker malfunctions that lasted long enough to send everyone home had it been a regular party. Again, the takeaway here is that a mutual commitment to fun is the only ingredient to party success.
It is the official opinion of the Bennington Lens that Swalloween was the best party of the term. Taking into account the numbers from previous weeks, we had no choice but to pull out the coveted Perfect Rating. Don’t get cocky, Swan, but you earned it.
Be First to Comment