(Photo courtesy of Kadey Vannett) “ACE’s Spring Week is packed with unique and exciting events to close out the year”
Nate Coady
Connector Editor
Despite the notion that spring keeps getting further and further away, and the infamous groundhog not seeing his shadow, the members of UMass Lowell’s Association for Campus Events (ACE) are holding their heads high as Spring Week approaches. Every year, as the school year closes out, ACE holds a special week-long series of events in celebration of another year completed and the onset of spring. This year, ACE boasts its most eventful Spring Week yet, including a trip to New York City, Culture Fest, and 76 Fest, as well as the popular annual Big Prize Bingo and the Spring Carnival.
The Spring Carnival is an event that students look forward to the most going into Spring Week. Held on the Riverview Athletic Field on South Campus, the Spring Carnival will feature four rides this year: a Yo-Yo ride, The Zipper, The Scrambler, and a Zero Gravity ride, according to ACE’s Director of Traditions Marlis Occilant, who oversees organizing the Spring Carnival. “I wanted to collaborate with other clubs on campus,” she says, “we got thirteen clubs that are going to be at Spring Carnival that will be doing activities. “Just like a traditional carnival, there will be popcorn, cotton candy, and pretzels.
Occilant has decided on pink as a theme for the marketing of the event. “My favorite color is pink… I know students love outside-the-box colors that aren’t just blue and red, so I was like, why not pink?” Some students may have seen ACE’s social media posts promoting Spring Week, which Occilant describes as “very cute… and pink.”
“This is the most rides Spring Carnival has ever had… this will be the biggest one,” says ACE President Collin Gallagher. Many will remember last year’s spring carnival, which only had two rides and slightly chaotic lines. Kadey Vannett, Director of Publicity, says, “Our main focus this year was figuring out the lines because a lot of times that was a huge thing for people… the lines were too long, and they weren’t managed, and people were cutting… we really focused on that and got barriers.” This year, students won’t have to worry as much about long confusing lines for rides.
The other main Spring Week event is Big Prize Bingo and ACE is going all out with the prizes, featuring a PlayStation 5, a Nintendo Switch, a pair of AirPod Maxes, a Yogibo, and a Dyson Airwrap, just to name a few. “This year I think the prizes are the biggest we’ve had, pricewise, I think everything is over three hundred dollars,” says Vannett. It is safe to say that students will find it worthwhile to play a few rounds of bingo because the prizes this year are most definitely big, plus there will be free shirts.
ACE will be debuting an event called Culture Fest during Spring Week, which is a collaboration with the Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) as “a way to give back to all these culture clubs,” says Gallagher. “We’re going to have booths set up where people can come and see the clubs… we’ll have a showcase at the end… It’s not something that’s been done before within our organization and we’re very excited,” he says. ACE is looking forward to Culture Fest, as it is a new way for all the culture clubs to come together. “I’m excited for Culture Fest because its the first time we’ll have it and I’m big on collaboration, especially with the other culture clubs,” says Occilant.
Spring Week will end with a music festival in collaboration with 76 Records, a record label club on campus. The festival boasts a lineup of local artists who will close out Spring Week on the CRC turf. Artists in attendance will be Hibernated, Prince T’Challa, Paint By Numbers, Escape Durgin, Oddie, AWOL, and Burp. The festival will run from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Anticipation is high for Spring Week. The tickets for the trip to New York City sold out within less than an hour and ACE has big plans for the events that will follow.
