On Oct. 29, the Samford Student Activities Council hosted its third annual Fall Festival with new social distancing requirements.
The event featured two main activities for students to choose from: classic pumpkin painting and the new offering, flower arranging. Both stations were socially distant, and extra COVID-19 precautions were added such as glove wearing while handling the flowers.
SGA Vice President of Events Claire Pool described how the idea for the flower arrangement activity developed.
“We actually were going to bring in pre-arranged flower bouquets from a local vendor
because that’s always been a hit. But we instead decided to make that an activity for
students to do on their own because we knew that’s something that they would love,” Pool said.
“I think both were huge successes,” Pool added. “We had sold out tickets for both sections!”
Director of Special Events Meredith Stone started planning for the Fall Festival in September, but this year’s festivities were more difficult to arrange due to COVID-19. Careful thought was put into the Fall Festival so that students could be safe and have fun. One of the adjustments to the event was the introduction of staggered time slots.
Samford students were required to pick up tickets from the Hub prior to attending the event. Each ticket allowed the student to attend the Fall Festival for a 30 minute time slot between 7 and 9 p.m.
Pool explained how the staggered time slots allowed for more students to attend the Fall Festival while also abiding to social distancing guidelines.
“The ticketing system was a way to abide by Samford’s guidelines regarding only 50 people together at a time,” Pool said. “The staggered time slots allowed for us to have more than 50 students attend Fall Fest in general, so all of campus had the opportunity to come if they picked up a ticket.”
The other factor that helped the event cater to even more students was that the two main attractions were on either side of the Quad. Since the pumpkin painting and the flower arranging were so far apart, there was more room to socially distance.
“We were able to have 50 people on each side of the Quad, which was great and allowed us to let more people attend since everything was so socially distant,” Pool said.
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