Every year around the weekend of Oct. 13 to 15, many activities occur on and around VCU. These activities have been strong individually, but this year VCU decided to bring all of them together to create a new tradition.
Fall Fest, as the tradition has been titled, brought together Family Weekend, the Grace Street Festival, Open House, faculty lectures, alumni events and other programs.
Activities included a showing of the cult classic “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” Ram Madness, art exhibitions, the Department of Dance and Choreography’s “Salon,” musical concerts, Haunts of Richmond tours, a Monroe Park cookout and this year’s National Folk Festival, which took place in Richmond.
The merger seemed to be effective, said Clyde Jones, a freshman business major. Like many students, Jones attended several events.
“We figured, let’s have something fun to do,” he said. “So we came out.”
Ashley Selbe, a freshman Art Foundation major who attended the Grace Street Festival and the Monroe Park Cookout, said the combination of events was a great idea.
“It’s fun,” she said. “It’s a good thing to get everybody together.”
Brandon Baker, a junior sports management major who attended multiple Fall Fest events, said he stayed busy with all of the activities.
“I think the whole idea of Fall Fest is actually very interesting,” he said. “It helps to build more of a community within VCU than we’ve had in the past. It helps to gain school spirit.
“Everything they’ve done this weekend has been a huge success,” Baker said.
Garrett Oldland, a freshman biomedical engineering major, said the weekend of nonstop events was “pretty intense.”
Alex Burnette, a freshman mechanical engineering major, said all of this weekend’s festivals opened his eyes to different cultures.
“I get to meet a lot of different people from all these different places and different countries,” he said. “It’s an eye-opener.”