Marbella Gonzalez
Reporting Student
KBTL, the radio station at Butler, held the first of its planned annual Luau Dance parties on Thursday, April 20 to bring about recurring traditions for the students to become more involved and to cultivate itself into Butler student activities. The event took place at the Welcome Center on the El Dorado campus from eight to 11 p.m. About 40 people showed up to the Luau Dance, which was a major increase from the last dance.
The event was organized by the promotions team, which is filled by students in Applied Radio. The class has 22 students, and the majority of them are on the Radio/TV scholarship. However, some students are not on scholarship and only take the class as an extra elective. This is the second year the radio station has hosted two dance parties at the end of each semester. The last dance was on December 1 and was called “Final Freeze Out.” The turnout was a huge disappointment for what was anticipated since less than 10 people showed up, which means there was more staff than actual students who attended. This can be blamed on the fact that the event lacked promotion up until the week of the dance and because the dance took place on a Thursday nearing the end of the semester. A lot of students could not attend because of the amount of homework they had due the next day or because of early morning classes. The result of this event motivated the promotions team to do a better job for the next dance.
Planning for the next dance started in early February. The Applied Radio class met every Wednesday from 11 to11:55 a.m., and they knew they had to plan a theme and come up with ideas for their next dance. Someone from the promotions team shared two different themes, a pajama party or a luau dance. Everyone liked the luau theme and brainstorming ideas over what type of decorations and activities there would be that connected to the theme, like limbo contests, leis and blow up palm trees. Picking the date was the next thing on the agenda to plan for. Originally, they had scheduled the dance to be on Thursday, April 27, but Student Government Association (SGA) had a planned Spring Fling on that day and at the same time as the Luau Dance. The station moved the dance a week early to April 20 to avoid issues with people not attending and to participate in Spring Fling as well.
Students in the class got an opportunity to design the poster and vote for the best one among as a group. The poster had to include the theme, time, date and location. It also had to include the radio station’s slogan “88.1 the Grizz” and have the only requirement to get in which was to bring their Butler ID. Two different posters were selected to be distributed the first week after spring break. It was also around this time that the radio station was approved to become an official organization and be a part of SGA. There was an election of officers and sophomore Konner Zimmerman was elected as president. By being part of SGA, the radio staff saw this as a door leading to many opportunities to be more involved in student life, more visibility around campus and funding.
The first week after spring break is when posters were distributed, which was a month in advance. Posters were put up all over the El Dorado campus in each building, including the dorms. Posters were also put up in the Andover campus and the off-campus school apartments the Villas. The poster was also sent to SGA, so that they could share the event through Butler’s social media. The radio station’s DJs also shared the event online and spread the event by word of mouth to other Butler students. The week of the Luau Dance is when the event was added onto the community calendar for DJs to share on their radio shows.
Two weeks before the event is when all the decorations that were ordered came in, which included a hula girl cutout, multiple blow up animals, cutout frames, leis, hats, luau-themed wallpaper and a blow up limbo were ordered. A money-fund order was requested to SGA to help pay for drinks, glow sticks and photo booth supplies. A sign-up sheet was posted to assign the radio students to a position. Every student enrolled in Applied Radio had to take a position and help run the event from six to 11 p.m. Positions included checking in students at the dance and checking IDs and handing out leis; photographers for the photo booth; floaters to go around and make sure things go smoothly; concessions and two DJs.
On the day of the Luau Dance, the radio staff was enthusiastic to start setting up for the event at the Welcome Center at six p.m. In the two hours before the event was to start, they prepared by setting up the concessions, tables, speakers, photo booth, limbo and prizes. Once the speakers were all hooked up to the DJs’ equipment, the first DJ, which was sophomore Dominic Brown, started to play music and setting up was done by the time it was eight p.m.
By 8:15 p.m., students began showing up. As the night progressed, more and more groups of people showed up. When they first entered the Welcome Center, they were required to show their Butler ID and were then provided with a lei and a glowstick. By 9:30 p.m., the majority of students were either dancing or getting their picture taken at the photo booth. Butler’s theatre department had their opening night of a play on the same day as the dance. However, once that ended at 9:30 pm, a lot more students made their way to the Welcome Center. Around 10 p.m. is when the limbo contest began, and almost everyone participated in it. The winner and runner-up won a prize. After the limbo contest, freshman Dusty Vanhsy, who is an actual DJ in Wichita, took over as DJ for the remaining hour.
“With college students vs. a rave, I have to play more mainstream music,” Vanhsy said. “{We played} mostly remixes of songs that most people may have heard before on the radio.”
Vanhsy usually performs at club parties or raves in Wichita to an older audience and is aware of the difference in the age group’s tastes in music.
Around 10:50 p.m. is when people started to leave and by 11:20 p.m., the Welcome Center was all cleaned up and all the equipment for the dance was packed up.
Overall, the Luau Dance was considered as success in comparison to the last dance the radio station hosted. The Luau Dance helps promote the radio station in showing the atmosphere of the radio station to other students. It also helps to them to have events like these to help them be more visible and build a relationship with the community.
