Charlotte Korer ’27
Editor-in-Chief
On Sept. 12, Scripps hosted Eurobash, the first SAS-organized party of the year. Eurobash featured blacklight face paint, a DJ booth, and a dance floor. The Claremont Police Department subsequently shut down the party after receiving a noise disturbance call from a Claremont residence at 12:03 am that ended at 12:30 am. I chatted with Evelyn Cantwell ’28, 5C events co-chair, to learn what goes into planning a party for the Scripps community.
Q: How did the Eurobash party come about?
We had so much fun planning the Scripps Eurobash Party! Avni (Kalia ’28, 5C events co-chair) and I started planning this in May, submitted our proposal in early July, and then we made it happen!
The really cool thing about Eurobash is that it is an institutional tradition. Starting in the late ’90s, Eurobash went by a slightly different name, but was hosted annually at Scripps, and it was Scripps’s biggest party of the year, but it died just before COVID. We did some digging, and we decided to bring it back! What a fun theme. With Zara Larsson and Eurosummer trending, this period of dance music is having a big comeback. So we decided to throw a Eurodance party.
Q: What is the value of a Scripps party?
We want to bring Scripps nightlife back. Scripps is not known to be a party campus. We have a very quiet, quaint, historically-protected campus. We want to make sure that Scripps students get themes and features that they love, and obviously the other 5Cs are welcome too. We tried to cater mainly to Scrippsies first and foremost, giving them priority wristbands. Creating vibrant life on Scripps campus is really important. Avni and I believe that shared values come from shared experiences, and those shared values are the foundation of community. We want to give students as many opportunities as possible to connect and dance together and find joy. That’s what builds Scripps’s community. Joy is powerful.
Q: How did Eurobash go?
I think we had a pretty solid turnout. It was maybe the earliest I’ve ever seen that many people come to a party. It was pretty busy early on, which was really, really fun. A lot of people with blacklight face paint, and passing the giant inflatable bubbles around. People were smiling, and that made us happy. It wasn’t crazy-packed towards the end, as we were turning the sound up and down with the noise complaint. So we lost some attendees, but overall, we’re pretty happy with how it turned out.
Q: What goes into planning a Scripps party?
The Office of Student Engagement (OSE) requires us to submit our event proposal, which includes a detailed layout, all of the event features, Emergency Medical Services, restrooms, and our projected budget. How many Campus Safety officers and how many people we are expecting to have at the party need to be known ten weeks in advance. We then communicate with the Offices of Risk Management, Facilities, Grounds, and Public Events to coordinate approval of all of our different event elements, make sure that we can actually get the date and the venue, and have the staff available. We make sure that nothing threatens the sprinklers in the grass and that we don’t need waivers for attendees. So we talk about all of the different levels of risk with Risk Management to figure out how to make it the safest party for everyone. There are a lot of different things we have to consider. We have to have Emergency Medical Services on site. We have to make sure that staging is compliant and that wristbands are secure, and that we have enough campus safety officers per person. So there are hours and hours of work that go into just proposing the initial event. Then we eventually do a walkthrough with all of these stakeholders that I mentioned, usually two weeks in advance of the party. Amid all of this, Avni and I are ordering decor and designing posters and wristbands and coordinating with volunteers.
Then right up to the day of, it’s an all-hands-on-deck weekend; we wake up early in the morning. To make sure that fencing arrives on time. We don’t get to go to sleep until 4 a.m. because we have to put the bollards blocking car access to campus down when the night’s over. But we have SAS volunteers to help, which is really great.
Q: Where does the funding for Scripps parties come from?
Our funding comes from student fees, so all different SAS position budgets are allocated from a pool of student fees, which is a small portion of our tuition, essentially. Those go to the school, the school gives them to SAS, and we tell our finance executives how much money we need for the events. We budget very, very carefully. The wristband funds just go to paying for the party. Those help us pay for DJs, water, and pizza.
Q: What happened with the Claremont Police Department shutting down the party?
We got a noise complaint from a Claremont resident, which prompted cops to show up. They spoke to Jessica Nelson, Area Coordinator for Student Engagement, and Winnie Bee, Assistant Director of Student Engagement at the Office of Student Engagement (OSE). Nelson tried to negotiate with them, and we turned the sound down significantly, but, unfortunately, they said it wasn’t enough and that if we didn’t shut down the party immediately and turn off all sound, OSE would receive a $1,000 or more fine or Nelson and Bee would be arrested. That was the point that we shut it down, which was a bummer; nobody got to hear all the greatest hits that come on at the end of the night.
Campus Safety doesn’t have the authority to shut down an approved party unless something really dangerous is happening or somebody gets hurt. When a resident of Claremont calls in a noise complaint, that’s under city code. The police have to show up, and then they have a choice about what they get to do next – whether or not to allow us to turn the sound down and proceed, or to shut it down directly. Their discretion was just to shut it down.
Q: What message do you have for the Scripps student body?
Big things are coming for Halloween. We’re partnering with Pomona, so it’s gonna be an epic Pomona Events Committee-SAS collaboration!
