Taylor’s holds first week-Long Clubs & Societies’ Festival outdoors

The sign that greeted attendees at the entrance to the event. (Source: writer)

During the second week of the March 2023 semester, Taylor’s University held the latest iteration of its clubs and societies’ (C&S) festival: a 5-day, activity-filled, outdoor event that gave clubs the chance to add new members to their families.

Held within and around the Taylors’ Square and Amphitheater, the festival was organized by the Taylor’s Orientation Leaders’ committee (OL) as an opportunity for the various Taylor’s clubs or societies to promote themselves and facilitate the recruitment of new members.

“This event was a significant undertaking. It was such a new and huge event for the year. We didn’t have any experience with it, as we expanded the traditional one-day C&S day into a five-day festival,” says Jing Yee, the project manager behind the festival.

Throughout the course of the 5-day event, various booths were set up under canopy tents including a wide diversity of club booths, F&B stalls, a photo booth, and more setups where small businesses could sell their products.

Despite the much larger scale of the event, several representatives did have their fair share of complaints. Common ones included the afternoon heat, “which, unfortunately, was out of our control,” said Jing Yee.

Rie Kajiya, president of the Flix Society, also mentioned that despite the larger number of attendees, they did not actually recruit as many members when compared to previous C&S events.

“We were able to earn much more money from the recruitment fees during the C&S Day last August,” Kajiya mentions.

Bernice Lee, president of the Taylor’s Music Club, also shared her criticisms of the 5-day occasion.

“Aside from the hiccups between the Orientation Leaders and my own club, we also had freshies ask us where our booth was since a club’s booth could only be set up on certain days. And since most attendees only dropped by the festival once, they must have missed the chance to join clubs they might be interested in.”

Despite this, the festival still received many attendees, with several attendees saying that they preferred the “flexibility and casual-ness” of the outdoor festival compared to the usual grand hall iterations.

“There was overall more to do, so it felt like a proper fun event,” said an attendee.

The event received many attendees through its 5-day course. (Source: writer)

“With an impressive 4.58 out of 5 satisfaction rate from the participants…this event has brought joy and enhanced the campus life experience for Taylorians,” said Jing Yee, further sharing hopes that the school’s management considers holding similar events in the future.