PoBev named ‘Best Event Series’
Utah State University’s Poetry and a Beverage, or PoBev, was named “Best Event Series” by the National Association for Campus Activities after entering the competition in November 2015.
PoBev, a monthly event that brings students together to listen to student-performed poetry and music and enjoy refreshments, won the award based on the consistent large number of students that attend and how much it has grown over the past couple of years.
Naturally, PoBev qualified for the competition because it is an event series that recurs every month on a college campus. However, the students and committee that organize the event had to go through a submission process for the competition that required a little extra work.
They created a portfolio of the budget, attendance rates, and advertising techniques used to market PoBev. In the portfolio, they also included information that they had on this year’s success with PoBev and any posters and pictures that have been used for PoBev in previous years.
The information included in the portfolio was enough to showcase the strides that Pobev has made since it began, especially just in this last year.
When it first started, PoBev was located in the Hub of the Taggart Student Center and outside on the patios. Since then attendance rates have increased so much as to have to move the location for the event from the Sky Room to the TSC Lounges and now the TSC ballroom.
“I remember when it was on the patio and it had been interesting to see the progression,” says Nate Dukatz, a senior at Utah State who is majoring in Management Information Systems and minoring in Computer Science.
Dukatz works with about 5-10 other students on a committee that prepares for PoBev accordingly, depending on the theme for the month and any extra activities planned for the evening.
Dukatz and his committee also receive help from an appointed adviser and all the people that work at the school doing stage setup, sound and lights. Much of the committee’s budget goes toward these setups and any catering services that are needed for the event.
Dukatz attributes much of PoBev’s growth to Spencer Bitner, the main manager of stage setup and lights. Bitner has been working with the monthly event since the beginning and has seen how PoBev has changed and how students’ participation in it has changed.
PoBev was and is intended to be an event where students could go to showcase their performance talents. These talents can include a range of things, from reading original storybooks to performing musical numbers and covers of their favorites songs. Just recently though and as a part of its growth, PoBev has expanded to include exciting minute-to-win-it games and special guest artists like Kitfox. Just last month both of these additions were featured at PoBev.
Dukatz said special extensions like these are what attract more and more students to the event every month.
“I have noticed more people coming to listen and pay attention to the talent on stage since the switch, which I think is a great thing,” he said.
The change of locations around campus in order to adapt to the growing number of students that attend paired with the themed games and featured local bands has added to the overall flow and efficiency of the event, he said.
“We have generally been able to have more students perform at each PoBev this year than in years past,” Dukatz said.
Many students that have performed at PoBev have said that they appreciate the opportunity to be able to use the event as an outlet to express themselves.
In the most recent PoBev event on March 26, almost all students who participated performed original compositions of poems and songs.