By Jessica Wind (Contributor) – Email
Print Edition: September 19, 2012
To round out their two Weeks Of Welcome events, Student Union Society (SUS)’s AfterMath Afterparty provided music, magic, partial nudity and ultimately entertainment. As cords and speakers were checked on the stage, Carlos Vidal, SUS president, took the mic and warmed up the crowd.
Prizes began flowing early on in the evening once Vidal passed the mic over to AfterMath manager (and apparent emcee veteran) Brad Ross. He began by waving two tickets to the upcoming Stone Temple Pilots concert at the Abbotsford Entertainment Sports Centre. Rock and roll trivia was the criteria to win the first set of what would be many tickets and gift certificates passed out over the duration of the evening. Patrons also won for being quick with UFV trivia, AfterMath trivia, movie trivia, and Spongebob Squarepants character knowledge.
The stage was passed over to YouTube sensation Andrew Huang, who came from Toronto for the event. Despite the fact that his common audience consists of the faceless internet millions, he appeared entirely comfortable in front of the crowded restaurant.
It was clear that Huang has fun with what he does, and he knew how to win the attention of his grew-up-in-the-‘90s audience; he rapped to the Tetris theme song, sang about horse-manning and impersonated Bjork.
Following Huang’s performance, Ross and Vidal took up the mic once again to give away more prizes while magician, Wes Barker, readied his show. As a result, fourth-year English major Lian McIntyre was one of the lucky students who went home with a group paintballing session, and fifth-year business student Mike Wood walked away with free movies for a year.
Barker’s show started out strong with an elaborate math equation, the product of which was clearly a phone number, and Wes’ pocket started ringing. The punchline? “That’s how you get a girl’s phone number.”
He then performed another illusion in which he took an audience member’s $20 bill and magicked it into a lemon.
Unlike most magic showcases, Barker’s show was as much about sexual comedy (making a strip of condoms appear in an unsuspecting volunteer’s purse) as it was about impressive and mystifying illusions. For instance, his last trick was a straightjacket escape, which was made all the more time sensitive by a slowly loading nude picture of himself that was projected on the big screen. He managed to wriggle free from the buckles of the jacket just before the photo bared all.
This is SUS’ first attempt at hosting various events during the first weeks of school, instead of one large event. Barker said that spreading the events out was a big hit.
“What they’re doing this year is really great,” Barker explained. “Kids can come to some of it or come to all of it, instead of banking on one big concert night when it usually rained.”
“I’m definitely going to come back every year,” the magician continued. “I love this thing.”
With the entertainment over, it was time to pass out the big three prizes: the ones that everyone in the room had their eyes on.
Fourth-year Fine Arts major Jeff Stackhouse was given the opportunity to choose between the UFV course and the iPad; he chose the iPad. Second-year Kinesiology student Sukhdeep Brar won the UFV course. Finally, the last big prize went to a very excited second-year Bachelor of Science student, Alex Toner, who won the trip to Vegas.
There was no shortage of exciting prizes, entertaining comedy and enjoyable music, all paired with AfterMath eats and beer. But how did S.U.S. perceive this event, and all the Weeks of Welcome events over the last two weeks?
Vidal was proud to say that they fed more students over the last two weeks than probably ever before. VP East Shane Potter was impressed with the success of their two Chilliwack events and was glad to see so many student clubs and associations come out. VP Social Chris Doyle sent a big thanks out to all the volunteers and acts that made the events so successful, and to all the students for coming out and having a good time.
After being sufficiently welcomed back to the fall 2012 semester, and seeing such an overall positive response from everyone involved and in attendance, it is fairly safe to gather that although this was SUS’ first trial with Weeks of Welcome, it probably won’t be the last.
