UFEST returns to Peace Quad, offering connection and entertainment

UFEST, one of Binghamton University’s biggest campus events, made its annual return on Aug. 23. Held on the Peace Quad to mark the beginning of the fall semester, students connected with clubs, communities and opportunities on campus.

The Peace Quad was filled with countless stalls and tables showcasing over 250 clubs on campus. Accompanied by a live DJ, the sunny Peace Quad was a great place to mingle and start the semester off by meeting new people. Students interacted with different clubs and received free merchandise, making it the perfect opportunity for organizations to make a personal impact and talk to students individually.

“UFEST (University Fest) is a campus tradition going back to 1993,” Jennifer Keegin, director of campus activities, wrote in an email. “It started as a ‘campus/community’ event that invited local vendors to come to campus and showcase what the region had to offer to students. Since then, UFEST has grown and changed.”

The University and the event’s growing scale mean that planning is largely a team effort. Both Campus Activities and Nick Ginsberg, the executive vice president of the Student Association, worked over the summer to plan this year’s UFEST, according to Keegin. Typically taking place on the Peace Quad and Spine, the organizers expanded their layout to include Lot B and more organizations and academic departments.

The process also came with some challenges due to its size. As UFEST expands, however, the planning committee also changes the event’s limits to accommodate the student body’s needs.

“Planning where organizations can table was definitely a challenge,” Ginsberg wrote. “However, it was made easier because this year, my office sent a preferences form to all groups tabling at UFEST asking which category they’d like to table in as well as who they want to table next to. This took a huge amount of work off of the EVP Office, because instead of guessing where groups want to table, they were able to tell us.”

“I think that the preferences form made the challenge of placing groups at different tables a lot easier,” he continued.

Musical and performance organizations put on small performances for excited onlookers. Many tabling clubs handed out snacks and goodies to interested students, and attendees had the chance to participate in attractions like a large rock wall, a drone dome and raffles.

For many organizations and clubs, UFEST is the best time to gauge student body interest one-on-one. Members can connect with students looking to join on a deeper level compared to a larger setting, like general interest meetings.

“This is our biggest recruiting event of the year,” Mark Stephens, an instructional support specialist in the physics department and the instructor for the Physics Outreach Project, said. “We’ve got the most people here, and this is the best time to do recruiting. We’ve got all these new freshmen on campus. This is before our schedule of programs starts, so we can get some fresh volunteers in, get them up and running.”

Along with perusing clubs, students stopped by student vendors featuring clothing and jewelry and some local stores from the area selling winter hats and gloves. Students snacked on free candy and snow cones to escape the heat.

“UFEST is such an important event to have at BU because it is the only time of year where almost 300 organizations and departments are all together on the Peace Quad,” Ginsberg wrote. “That means that new (and returning) students have the ability to find groups that they had no idea existed. UFEST is one of a kind in the ways that it shows how big of a community we have here at Binghamton, and the range of clubs we offer. Beyond that, UFEST is just a fun event for student groups to table together, share why they love their group, and get creative with their tabling set up.”