On Tuesday, Feb. 24, Pitt State’s Gorilla Activities Board (GAB) hosted a silent disco in the Overman Student Center Ballroom. The event provided a set of headphones for each student to wear, with the headphone color indicating which genre would be playing through them.
The event was coordinated by GAB’s programming chair, Trevor Bunt. Bunt is a junior majoring in graphic communications. When asked about the inspiration for the event, he explained, “We’ve basically done it every year, so it’s just like a yearly thing that we do. The headphones are on auto-order, so they just get shipped here to the university, and then they’re ready to go with all the channels and stuff.”
The disco serves as a way to let students relax before midterms, Bunt adding that students enjoy “just getting to, like, dance with everyone. We have like, line dances going on, and I just think it’s a good way to let off steam right before midterms.”
According to Bunt, the disco had a steady flow throughout the night.
“More people keep showing up as the event keeps going, so that’s good.” He added, “We’ll probably do it again next year wherever we can fit it in with our planning.”
Students like graphic communications senior Ashley Atkinson came for the dancing and the good vibes. “It’s like a non-judgement zone,” Atkinson said. “Everyone is just screaming and shouting, like you can’t hear anyone, so people aren’t worried about being heard and just dancing freely.”
Atkinson was excited to attend the event. “I’ve heard of the silent disco at other places before, and I missed it last year. But I heard it was really fun, so I wanted to go today.”
Junior psychology major Olivia Tune agreed, saying her favorite part was “Just having fun; the music, dancing with friends, it’s really exciting and a way to get out. Everybody is doing their own thing.” She added, “It’s really funny whenever you take your headphones off.”
Junior communications major Wesley Reed enjoyed the event, but he noted that the participation was lower than that of previous years. “Last year I was here and I met a lot of people, but it was early in the year. Now it’s so close to midterms and spring break that I feel like a lot of people just don’t want to go out right now.”
Regardless of attendance, students were able to dance to their favorite music.
“I don’t like country, but I’ve really liked the green and the blue tonight,” said Tune. “Each section has a different genre; the red plays country and the blue plays hip hop. I mainly listened to blue tonight, but green had some bangers.”
The green headphones played “throwback music,” which was a favorite for Atkinson. “They have a lot of throwback songs that are playing, and I really like those. There was just a Victoria Justice song playing, so that was really fun.”
Reed agreed, stating that “Green was banging tonight. It was up the wazoo.”
Overall, students felt that the event was a great time, with Atkinson saying, “It’s really fun, I feel like people are missing out, so they should come next time.”
Reed added, “People should come to more GAB events.”