Students spun around in mountains of foam and paint to a variety of music genres during the Student Activities Board’s Foam Drop Paint Party.
“I love it. Everyone’s having such a great time. Everyone is so friendly and I’ve already met several people. This is such a great idea,” sophomore Anna Smith said.
The annual event took place in the Irby brick pit seeping into the late hours of the night.
President of SAB senior Trey Massingill said, “This is about our sixth time having a foam drop or a paint party. It’s really just a fun little event. We like to bring it out because who doesn’t like shooting foam and having music playing? It’s just a place for students to come on a Friday night and just have a little bit of fun.”
Unlike previous years, this edition of the event took the concept to new heights.
“We have a mixture of both [paint and foam] this year. It’s our first time doing it. We have the foam cannon and then we also have our paints, and there’s gonna be a paint gun as well,” Vice President of SAB senior Sami Lopez-Montano said.
Many of the organization’s early semester events complement Student Orientation Staff’s move-in week events by being geared toward freshmen and introducing them to the college experience.
“I always think about the freshmen when we plan events,” Massingill said. “We have these three other classes we gear events to. We have events geared toward everybody. But it’s really important to grab the freshmen within the first couple of months. It can really make a difference in their college career.”
Entering his final year of presidency, Massingill is looking forward to his future with SAB.
“I know I’m gonna be moving on to a different position within SAB, but it’s still bittersweet because I love this organization with my whole heart. I want to keep pursuing it, but just not in the capacity that I am now. I want to get more involved. SOS? They bleed orange. SAB? we bleed red, white and blue.”
With Massingill on his way out, the organization is already training new people such as volunteer freshman Tanner Bogart.
“I’m enjoying it. It’s my first event so I’m still kind of getting used to it but everyone’s really nice and it seems like it’s gonna be a good time,” Bogart said.
Massingill said that because this is one of SAB’s unique events, it’s not surprising to see the organization looking for help from every class, as the turnout is always huge.
“In the previous years, we’ve had about 300 or so people just coming in and out. People just walk by and they hear the music playing,” Montano said.
“We don’t have many dance parties. We’ve done big concerts before, but this is a completely different animal. Mainly because we bring a DJ and they shoot foam out in the crowd,” Massingill said. “This time we have little handheld paints people are spraying around. And then they’ll alternate between paint and foam each time.”
Students from a wide variety of classes filled the brick pit and met new people.
Smith said, “It’s a chance to meet new people and to let loose. It gets people out of their shell, especially me, being more of an introvert … just seeing people who don’t care and are so friendly.”
With experiences such as the Foam Drop Paint Party finally coming back into swing following the pandemic, it even gives upperclassmen the chance to attend events they were once barred from.
Senior Micha White said she saw an ad for the event in the Ronnie Williams Student Center lobby and thought, “Foam? I saw it as a freshman and wanted to go see it now that it’s back.”
Junior Brayden Bailey said, “I’ve had a long week so I thought ‘Why not try it and see what’s going on?’ I missed it the first couple of times and wanted to do it earlier.”
SAB’s next event is Oct. 6, during family weekend with a screening of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” from 8-10:30 p.m. on the Arkansas Hall lawn. Concessions and lawn games will also be available during the screening.
UCA students dance in the Irby brick pit during the Foam Drop Paint Party, organized by the Student Activities Board. The event had foam guns and a DJ.
