Students of Case Western Reserve University are no strangers to long hours of studying, even on weekends, and that mentality is undeniably part of CWRU’s reputation. “It’s Laser Tag!” aims to soften that image.
This Saturday, Oct. 6th, the Case quad will be completely commandeered for the game. “It’s Laser Tag!” is a free event from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., with registration opening at 8 p.m.
This student-run event, open to CWRU, Cleveland Institute of Art, and Cleveland Institute of Music students, as well as faculty, staff, and friends of the university, will feature a large outdoor laser tag arena encompassing the entire quad, free food, free neon t-shirts, strobe lights, fog machines, as well as live music from seven DJs and a live band.
The laser tag arena will be able to host up to 50 players at a time and will have barriers designed by CWRU’s various Greek chapters, modeled after their Greek letters. The DJs are DJ Deeb, DJ Pretty Ricky, Pruvit, DJ Mobitus, Friendly Fire, DJ Vol Mek, MWMW; the live band is Blank.
The event creators, Paige Veta and Chrissy Cavasinni, want to prove that CWRU students make time for non-academic activities.
“We study hard, we work hard, and now we play hard!” exclaimed Veta.
Veta and Cavasinni began planning for the event in March, wanting to organize something fun for the whole student body by themselves.
“We originally wanted to play laser tag after having a conversation of fun things kids do, and we started looking for locations when we came across outdoor laser tag equipment,” said Veta.
“We started talking to our friends to see if they wanted to chip in and play too, and things just kept snowballing to our current event of hundreds of people playing laser tag on the quad all night long!”
The event was originally planned to take place last semester, but it was postponed due to concerns about the liability of two individual students planning an event independent of a club.
However, after partnering with the Big Games Club (BGC), they were finally able to plan the event, as BGC is an organization recognized by the Undergraduate Student Government.
Even though they partnered with BGC and received financial support from the Univeristy Program Board and Residential Housing Association, Veta and Cavasinni still organized the event mostly on their own.
“We’re not run by any organization,” stressed Cavasinni.
Veta and Cavasinni worked tirelessly to put the event together. To streamline the planning process, each dedicated herself to a separate section of the event. Veta handled the business portion of the event, focusing mainly on the laser tag equipment, music, and food, while Cavasinni handled the aesthetic portion of the event, such as the t-shirts, strobe lights, and fog machines.
“We were both putting about 20 hours per week into this,” said Veta.
“The hardest part of this is that we’re only two people,” added Cavasinni.
“This is like our child now,” Veta chuckled. “And we’re running ourselves ragged to make sure it’s awesome for everyone!”
After putting so much work into the event, the planners have high expectations, having advertised throughout the CIA and CIM buildings, online, and all over the CWRU campus. In addition, they have talked and worked with residential advisors, Greek chapters, alumni, and graduate program leaders.
Overall, they feel as though “It’s Laser Tag!” was worth the huge commitment and that they learned something from it.
“All the uncertainty, sleepless nights, crunching numbers, and putting laser tag first was so worth it,” said Veta, “Honestly, it made Chrissy and me learn so much about our limits, multitasking, and both being professional and keeping it real.”
Veta and Cavasinni hope that everyone who attends “It’s Laser Tag!” has an enjoyable night, but more importantly, they hope that others will follow their example and plan events of their own.
“We wanted to show that anyone at Case Western can make the campus fun,” said Veta, “you don’t need to be the president of an organization to do so!”
