It might not have been cold enough last week to really feel like it, but fall has arrived – and Fall Fest was here to greet it. The third installment of this Student Engagement tradition, Fall Fest injects a little autumn cheer into campus by taking over the quad and turning it into a one-day-only pumpkin patch.
While Harper freshman Luka Zekic and Nick Edstrom had no complaints about the absence of “sweater weather,” they do admit to being taken off-guard by how complete of a transformation this year’s celebration really was.
“I walked out of my theater class and just was like, ‘Oh my God, what the heck is this?’” Edstrom said. “I wasn’t expecting it. I mean, I had seen posters for the event, but I didn’t put two-and-two together yet, so I was just like, ‘Why are there all these tents and pumpkins everywhere?’”
All the trappings of the past two Fall Fests were on full display. Sitting stoutly in the center of the quad, a tractor ringed with bales of hay provided a photo opportunity that was too good to pass up for groups of students, many of whom were just planning on passing through on the way to their next class. Now, they were tapping complete strangers on the shoulder and asking them to snap a picture or two.
The grass was just as dense with people as the sidewalks, as the allure of a free pumpkin brought students in, with many ending up lounging on the hammocks or sitting in circles amidst the field of future jack o’lanterns. Everyone who was feeling creative that day took a seat at one of the tables close by, where they could carve, paint and bedazzle away on canvases of orange squash.
Even for someone who’s only been at Harper for around a month, Zekic welcomed the change in atmosphere.
“Normally this place [the quad] just feels like it’s a lot of open space – which I get, because you can’t have an event every day,” Zekic said. “So it’s a nice thing to have, and it just gives everybody something to do.”
Edstrom concurs. For him, even just getting an opportunity to soak everything in is enough – he did most of his soaking in while relaxing on a park bench along with Zekic and Gary (a happy looking pumpkin who was left in their care as Gary’s ‘dad’ waited in line for pizza).
“[Fall Fest] is just a really cool thing,” Edstrom said. “I mean, I haven’t even done much yet, I’ve mainly just been sitting here talking to Luka here.”
Meanwhile, as the last few good pumpkins in the patch were snatched away by eager students, Harper sophomores Currin Moeller and Vanessa Del Real took their first real break since getting in line for food, settling down at some chairs and a table that were fully occupied mere moments before.
Though she’s been on campus for quite some time, Del Real felt that this Fall Fest was the first on-campus event that really drew her eye – Del Real and Moeller had both vaguely noticed advertising for events like Hullabaloo or Fall Fest around campus, but when they were in the student center together just an hour ago, the buzz from other students was hard to ignore. Curious, they decided to check it out for themselves.
“This is definitely the best one so far, at least visually,” Moeller said. “It’s the one that made me think, ‘Oh, I wanna go.’”
While all the autumn decor made Fall Fest an immediate hit with Moeller, she also felt that the event catered to her ears just as well as her eyes – right across from Del Real and Moeller’s table, country musician Angie K took center stage on the bandstand, brandishing her acoustic guitar.
Angie K was a contestant on season 10 of The Voice and was recently inducted into Country Music Television’s “Next Women of Country” class of 2023. After performing at Harper for a show back in Feb. 2022, she became a fan of the campus and was happy to work with Student Engagement once again for this year’s Fall Fest.
“I was originally only supposed to play an hour, but this is a three hour long thing and I had a day off tomorrow, so I decided to come back for two,” Angie said.
Typically, her setlists for live performances comprise of her original tracks, such as Laredo and Country is as Country Does. However, at events like this one, Angie K prefers to take song requests from the audience as well. To her, it’s a good way to both connect with the crowd as well as giving her an opportunity to showcase her talent across a broad range of styles.
“I like to let people tell me what they’re into,” Angie said. “I got a Creep [by Radiohead], I got some Taylor Swift, I got some Zach Bryan, some Tom Petty – good stuff!”
