Julia Hawkins
Equinox Staff
This past Sunday, Keene State College students and faculty celebrated the third annual Rocktoberfest. Rocktoberfest is a day-long event hosted by the Social Activities Council (SAC). Students and faculty blow up slides, give away free t-shirts, enjoy music from local bands from Keene State and drink hot apple cider. Every year, seven bands compete against each other and are judged by pre-selected judges who will determine the winner. The bands who performed this year were Afterimage, Chadus, Caroline James, The Detectives, Tinderman, River Light and Probably Honestly. Rocktoberfest gives students who enjoy playing and listening to music an opportunity to engage in music, dance and to be with friends and peers in the fall semester.
As the advisor to the Social Activities Council, Britany Gallagher helped coordinate this year’s Rocktoberfest. Along with many other coordinators, they have been planning this event since over the summer. One of the student coordinators, Janae Graham, said that she had been planning since July. Graham put out fliers for those interested in performing at the Rocktober Fest. Although not all of the members of each band attend Keene State, at least one has to in order for them to participate in performing at Rocktoberfest.
At this year’s Rocktoberfest, it was not only students and faculty who attended the event, but there were also student families there as well. The audience was large, with most of the area dedicated to the event being filled by students here at Keene State and local community members. A first-year student who attended Rocktoberfest said “it was fun”, and that he would definitely go again next year.
As opposed to other years, this year’s Rocktoberfest happened to take place on a Sunday, rather than a Saturday. In previous years, Rocktoberfest took place on an Admitted Student Day. Gallagher said, “It is a little bit different this year not having that Admitted Student Day crowd coming through, but it was still cool to see the different people that were coming in, getting some food and checking out some music.” Even if Rocktoberfest were to have happened on Admitted Student Day, the outcome of the event still would have been as great as it was this year,. As Rocktoberfest’s advisor, Gallagher said this year’s turnout was great. Those who helped coordinate the event did an excellent job putting together this activity. Gallagher said, “It’s always nice for me, as their advisor, to go to their events and think back on all their time and energy and effort that they put into planning it … it’s a really rewarding moment.” Although it took a lot of planning, Rocktoberfest this year met the staff’s expectations, and was a great social event for the Keene community.
Julia Hawkins can be contacted at
jhawkins@kscequinox.com
