[slideshow_deploy id=’11177′]The seven Homecoming events and promotional activities leading up to last Saturday’s football game cost Spotlight Programs Board a pretty penny, $43,400 to be exact, according to Spotlight Advisor Philip Smith.
Corey Sams, Georgia State Student Government Association’s (SGA) vice president of student services and the newly named Mr. Georgia State, said the football game is a vehicle for promoting a string of pep-rallying events.
“Sports teams really thrive off the student body input,” Sams said. “So I really understand the way that athletics is gearing up for homecoming. We have so much great push for promotions of athletics for homecoming. It [was] on Spotlight an SGA and other large student organizations to reach out to the students and tell them ‘we need you at these things.”
The season featured a formal press conference, breakfast meal, posh parties and a parade, rivaling last year’s nine events.
Rehash and price tags of Homecoming season’s events
Sept. 22: Press Conference, Price: $250
The 2015 Royal Court Candidates were announced to the public during a press conference held in Student Center East. The meet and greet cost $250 and welcomed students, faculty and staff to attend.
Monday: Good Morning Georgia State, Price: $500
One of the first events in Homecoming’s schedule was the Good Morning Georgia State event held in Unity Plaza on Monday Sept. 28 in Unity Plaza. The kick off to the Homecoming week cost a total of $500 and included a breakfast served with free waffles and pastries to more than 800 groggy-eyed students.
Tuesday: Spirit Plaza and Block Party, Price: $11,350
On Sept. 29, there was Spirit Plaza, which featured the homecoming court in Library Plaza. This gathering cost a total of $350 to pull off.
Then later that day from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., Spotlight Programs Board welcomed hippies to Student Center East for Georgia State’s Coachella-esque Homecoming block party due to inclement weather relocated the festivities. The “Block Party” cost $11,000. Students bounced to heavy bass kicks and grooved to a sporadic light show while local acts played their hearts out to a humbled student body.
Wednesday: Royal Ball, Price: $22,000
This year’s Royal Ball took approximately half of Homecoming’s budget, with a price tag of $22,000. Spotlight Advisor Phillip Smith said they opted for Fernbank due to an expected uptick from last year’s thousand attendees.
“It was a great opportunity because last year we had 1,000 people that wanted to come to the ball, so we were looking for a place with a little extra,” he said.
Ticket sales at the Royal Ball can claim revenue for next year’s Homecoming committee. Spotlight projected to sell 1,400 tickets to the ball and to raise $14,000.
Spotlight Programs Board missed that goal and ended up selling 883 tickets, according to Boyd Beckwith, director of Georgia State’s Student Center.
Droves of tailored-suited men and majestically clad ladies crammed onto the dance floor beneath the museum’s colossal dinosaur skeleton.
A decadent feast of butterfly shrimp, teriyaki chicken and deep-fried mac-n-cheese wooed some dancers from the main ball room before Georgia State’s hungry attendees cleaned out Fernbank caterer around 10:30 p.m.
Shortly thereafter Spotlight introduced Georgia State’s royal Homecoming court comprised of university big-shots, such as Sams. He and other members of the court shocked the crowd of students and their dates when they broke into a spontaneous dance number, which Sams said will survive as a goofy tradition in the years to come.
Thursday: Golf Cart Parade, Price: $6,500
While participants in the Oct. 1 Golf Cart Parade suited up for their 15 minutes of fame in the procession, students and onlookers flashed their Georgia State gear with pride. Echoing traditions of presidents and officials, President Mark Becker and his first lady rode in the back of a topless Chevy Camaro waving and smiling to the passing crowd.
Saturday: Homecoming Game, Attendance: 11,512
Georgia State’s football team faced Liberty, a team from Virginia, in the Georgia Dome on Oct. 3 and lost 33-41. Attendance was at 11,512, which increased from last year’s 10,196 attendance.
This year’s Homecoming grand total vs. previous year’s
Homecoming this year cost about 10 grand more than last year’s $33,700, and it had two less events. In addition to paying for events, Spotlight spent $2,000 on public relations materials and giveaways. They also spent $800 on the Royal Court.
When Georgia State’s football program sprouted in 2010, Homecoming festivities moved to the Fall semester. And Georgia State Spokesperson Andrea Jones said the events have only grown in popularity since the basketball team passed on the torch.
“It has grown each year. For example, the president’s brunch has gone from around 100 guests to several hundred and we’ve seen those types of gains across the spectrum.
Spotlight committee member Sams said next year’s GSU-GPC consolidation will add a new variable to planning for the festive week’s eventful schedule
“Our next university Homecoming committee will sit down and talk about the large influx of students and decide how to accommodate that change,” he said. “Classic staples such as the Royal Ball will be even bigger…We have to continue to find ways to engage our off [main] campus students.”
Sams said he’s eager to see how the waves of graduates and new students will culminate into a spirited Panther family.
“I’m interested to see how we will begin to grow in our alumni base, student involvement, and overall sense of school spirit…Next year it’s all about.. creating the culture of Georgia State,” he said.
So as Georgia State tacks on another twenty-or-so thousand students and broadens its academic reach to five new Georgia campuses, Smith said the Homecoming planners will need to adjust the scale of their operations.
“Our focus is just pretty much the students we have on campus,” he said. “Hopefully we have things established and in place so that when GPC gets involved, they can just join in on the fun.”
This is absolutely disgusting to read. It’s nice to know that my friends and I are going in debt, chest deep so that GSU “StateNotSouthern” can be so financially cavalier at the expense of us. (Half of us, including myself, HATE Homecoming).