RUPA Insider: Senior Citizen Prom
As a member of The Concerts & Coffeehouses committee on RUPA, we have the ability to select artists to bring to campus, help get together all of the artists’s day-of-show needs, collaborate with the production team to set up/clean up, and most importantly: enjoy the concert! Beats on the Banks requires a lot of careful planning when selecting our artists. We have to choose artists that we know will appear to the Rutgers student body. This semester, we chose to have 3LAU and Baauer come to campus. We knew that both of these artists would draw a lot of students, especially having two artists instead of one. When we book the artists, we then receive documents from the artists’ managers called “riders.” Riders list all the necessary production gear that the artists need, as well as the hospitality goods that they would like to munch on the day of the show. My committee and I will travel to a store together to purchase all necessary items we need for the artists. On the day of the show, we create a dressing room for the artists with all of the supplies that they have requested.
Beats on the Banks is always a fun way to bond with the rest of RUPA council because in order for such a large scale event together, we need all hands on deck. We have different shifts throughout the day, including setting up the stage, working the show, and breaking down the stage. One of my favorite parts is setting up, where we all must work together with the production team to assist them whatever they need. The production team is also always willing to teach us how to set up the stage and work alongside us to put it together. After we had finished setting up, it’s an incredible feeling to see the final product of the lighting and stage set up before the flood of people entire the College Avenue Gym to enjoy a concert.
Although all RUPA members are assigned roles during the event to monitor the safety and traffic of students, we all still are able to have fun with each other by dancing to music together. One of my favorite memories from being on RUPA are moments from Beats on the Banks because we are all together having fun with each other, all while still working the concert together. It’s incredible to be a part of an organization that can create such a large-scale event together, and create memorable experience not only for the student body, but also with each other.
— Danielle Paxton, Marketing Assistant Director of Concerts and Coffeehouses
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