Clara Ann Bagnoli ’28 & Cassidy Miller ’28
Design Editor & Staff Writer
Has the 5C Halloween curse been broken? This year’s Halloweekend entertained three nights of multiple parties, events, and, for the more creative students, costumes.
On Thursday, Oct. 30, the numbers at Claremont McKenna’s Green Beach party, although lower than usual, still featured a plethora of students showing up and showing out. In addition, informal, smaller, student-hosted events kicked off the weekend as well.
The main event of Halloween night, Friday, Oct. 31, was the Halloween party hosted by Scripps Associated Students in collaboration with the Pomona Events Committee (PEC). The party is one of the first Scripps events in recent years to be hosted in partnership with another college. According to the SAS 5C Events Chairs, Avni Kalia ’28 and Evelyn Cantwell ’28, a large part of the school’s collaboration was to honor Pomona’s history of hosting Halloween events.
In previous years, PEC hosted an event called Hartwood Halloween. “Hartwood Halloween at Pomona used to be a really big [event] that kind of died out during COVID and Scripps took on [the task of] hosting Halloween as our own tradition,” Kalia said.
As tribute to this history, the 5C Event Chairs reached out to PEC and proposed the collaboration. Due to SAS’s recent tradition of hosting Halloween, SAS and PEC decided to host the event on Scripps’s campus at the intersection of Columbia Avenue and 11th Street, where previous events such as Brat Rave and Block Party were held.
SAS has a history of facing challenges when it comes to hosting Halloween. In 2023, a crowd of attendees forcibly pushed through the entrance to enter the party. As a result, the party was shut down early. This event is now referred to by upperclassmen as ‘January Scripps,’ a reference to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. An anonymous Scripps senior recalled in a past article, “I saw this rush of people and I was a little confused because it just looked very strange.”
“After [2023 Halloween], administration and SAS agreed there needed to be some more serious precautions around safety,” Cantwell said. This meant that Campus Security needed to be present at the event and that fencing be placed around the perimeter. “It’s overwhelming for the students to have [the party] feel so locked down, but we really want to make sure everything is safe for everybody,” she said.
Further safety measures were present as the Scripps Advocates hosted a table that provided partygoers with pizza, water, condoms, and even phone charging power banks.
Although safety is a significant concern, the 5C Events Chairs also stated that they want to prioritize fun for students. “I just really want [the party] to be exciting and entertaining, and something that people look forward to coming to,” Kalia said. “After the Halloween incident a few years ago, we want to show everyone that at Scripps, we do know how to host a party,” Cantwell said.
The Halloween party, which was open to all 5C students with no entrance fees, was well-attended, particularly later in the night. The party began at 10:00 p.m., but an hour in, attendance was sparse. However, around 11:40 p.m., large numbers of students were queued in line, many packed shoulder-to-shoulder as they waited to be let in one at a time through the event’s single entrance. Once students made it through the entrance, the crowd thinned out significantly. Closer to the stage, students were packed into a dense crowd again, pushing each other as they danced to the music. Oftentimes, security or the DJs had to remind students not to lean against the fence.
Despite the issues with crowd control, the party was largely a success. The music was upbeat and easy to dance to: the crowd responded positively to the DJs’ song choices. Additionally, the event’s many decorations curated a spooky and club-like atmosphere with their use of strobe lights, LED screens, and fog machines.
Pitzer hosted the subsequent Halloweekend finale with their party on Commencement Plaza. Equipped with a photo booth, Domino’s pizza, candy, and live sets by DJ Danster and DJ Bravo. Although the DJ booth featured rotating graphics of skeletons, pumpkins, and other Halloween characters, the music ranged from festive to regular house and techno beats. Unlike the night before, wristbanding was not required, which, coupled with the larger space, allowed the party to be larger and more populated more quickly.
With only three weekends left before Thanksgiving break and finals, this year’s Halloweekend parties reignited the social spirit of Claremont before students return to their libraries and browsing rooms to end the semester.
Photo Courtesy of Anna Guest ’29
