[music playing below quiet]
It’s Friday night — you know the vibe. You can hear the live music blaring—
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And feel the sweat wicking off fellow students looking to blow off some post-midterm steam. Instead of dropping a month’s worth of grocery money on a trip into Chicago, you shell out a small sum of cash to whichever student organization is throwing tonight’s fundie — a name for student-run parties meant to raise money for their group.
[ACT: Hey guys! Hey! Gonna be $5]
The routine is so seamless it almost feels effort-free — but there’s a lot of unseen work that goes into pulling one off. I talked to a few members of UNITY Fashion Show and Local Mojo NU ahead of last weekend’s Valentine’s Day fundie to see what goes into the weeks — or more accurately, hours — leading up to the big event.
[SUNNY BATRA]: “As any normal student, there’s a lot of procrastination involved. Lots, I think the majority of texts that have been sent in the group chat have been within the last probably 24 hours, not even 48”
That’s Sunny Batra, the UNITY co-executive director. She says the group didn’t exactly stress the finer points.
[BATRA]: “Literally yesterday we had our unity meeting and Issa and I were sitting there making a shopping list last night. Like we’re like, what makes sense for a budget? Like how many candles do we actually need? And there’s not really much, much math involved.”
But the idea has been in the works for much longer. UNITY puts on an annual fundie to raise money for its charity partner, Snow City Arts. This year, they decided to host it ahead of Valentine’s Day — in collaboration with Local Mojo, a student group that books shows for both student and local music artists. Organizers hoped both the live music and Valentine’s Day themed touches — like a matchmaking form and a pink-and-red photobooth — would attract a large crowd.
Once the theme was solidified, there came the implementation. Not just figuring out how to hang the match-bearing hearts on the walls—
[ACT: Does someone want to tape with me?]
But figuring out how to play Cupid.
[BATRA]: “I feel like, honestly, it was really simple: UNITY — style; Local Mojo — music, and it was more like, OK, well, we’re going to collab with Local Mojo and we’re doing matchmaking, so why not make the matchmaking about the interests of probably the people who are gonna be showing up, which are people who are into fashion or into music or probably maybe hopefully into both.”
Before any matchmaking could happen, though, there was obviously the question of getting people to show up. Batra says UNITY mainly relied on word of mouth.
[BATRA]: “I was very pro-Partiful because I think people love looking at guest lists and watching those numbers grow and seeing that other people are going and then they want to go too.”
She says that partnering with Local Mojo also helped draw a crowd. Local Mojo puts on dozens of shows of varying size throughout the quarter — in other words, they’re always thinking of how to turn people out. Local Mojo Director of Operations Leora Kurtz says some of it is word of mouth,
[LEORA KURTZ]: “Obviously we tell our friends to come to the shows, but it’s like almost entirely social media.”
And there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye.
[KURTZ]: “I feel like that’s one of the things, like ‘Oh, you just see a video on Instagram.’ There’s so much work that goes into that: At every meeting, our marketing team will get in a little circle, it’s super cute, and brainstorm ideas.”
Kurtz says there’s a similar formula to booking the bands:
[KURTZ]: “We have a lot of bands that DM us on Instagram or say, ‘Hey, we have new content, like we have more new songs, new originals, new whatever that we wanna perform.’ We have an ongoing doc with all the bands, but then also, we have personal relationships with all of the band members.”
Arden Anderson is in Sundae Brunch, one of the bands that played Friday night. She says those personal relationships between bands and booking staff help in preparations.
[ANDERSON]: “Getting everyone together and getting everyone organized can be hard, but they did a good job with this one.”
More than that, the friendly relationships remind everyone — from the bands to the bookers to the hosts — that these fundies aren’t so serious.
[ARDEN]: “All in all, it’s just for fun, and that’s why we’re here and why we want to play tonight.”
Batra says she feels the same about the planning process overall. Putting on a fundie may take a lot of work — and does help out the organizations. But at the end of the day (or night), these parties are really a chance for everyone to let loose and celebrate their success as a team.
[BATRA]: “It’s such a great time because a lot of our members don’t get to talk to each other because we have so many different committees, but then at the funding it is kind of a more casual setting where like members actually get to know each other. So while yes, obviously we really want to be raising money for charity, it’s also about bringing our group together in total.”
[Fade music]
So next time you go to a fundie, take a minute to appreciate all the behind-the-scenes work. And then take a page out of the organizers’ book: Relax, grab a drink and just have a good time.
For WNUR News, I’m Gabby Shell.