SAMANTHA BLONS
News Assistant
The Pepperdine Student Programming Board spent $46,073 on the Midnight Entourage and preceding Madness Village programs on Oct. 13, according to Keiy Murofushi, special events coordinator for SPB. The evening’s budget added up to almost 50 percent of SPB’s overall semester costs of $93,400.
According to Dustin Vyers, Student Activities coordinator, about 1,500 students, family members, alumni and faculty participated in the programs. Tiffany Saulnier and David Yoon of SPB said participation was down from 2005.
The evening’s events celebrated the beginning of the NCAA basketball season.
The program kicked off with the Madness Village, a spirit festival held in the Firestone Fieldhouse parking lot during intermittent rain for the two hours prior to the Midnight Entourage pep rally.
The Madness Village closed at 10 p.m., and Waves fans entered the Firestone Fieldhouse for the Midnight Entourage presentation.
The highlight of the program was the Court of Champions. After the performances, the Pepperdine audience welcomed back representatives from each of the past championship athletic teams.
Pepperdine seniors Kenny Felkel, Aaron Vandermaas, Ethan Hauptli, Brad Hackleman, junior Tiffany Saulnier and sophomore Kailey Fullerton hosted the program in a skit parodying the HBO television series “Entourage.”
“I think the least well-received [part of the program] was probably the skit,” Murofushi said. “It wasn’t necessarily the hosts’ fault. It just kind of came down to the last minute, and the hosts tried to compile something that would be entertaining.”
Several Pepperdine dance troupes and the cheerleading squad performed for the crowd at different times throughout the event, and SPB showed a Pepperdine spoof of the MTV television show “Next.”
Senior Lindsay Kleban, who danced in the production, said that although performing in the show required her to miss most of the Entourage skit and the Village activities, she enjoyed the event.
“All the different dancing performers did a really good job,” she said.
Freshman Sam Pike said he thought the show in Firestone Fieldhouse was overrated. “I’d heard all this great stuff about it and then I got there and it seemed somewhat anti-climactic,” he said.
10-26-2006