The Student Activities Council (SAC) hosted Variety Show on April 20 at 7 p.m. in the Carl Perkins Civic Center.
Variety Show is an annual event that gives student groups the opportunity to showcase different talents, including dancing, singing, costume design, set production and more. 2024 marks the show’s 25th anniversary, a milestone SAC emphasized in its planning.
Though Variety Show has been hosted by Blank Slate in years past, SAC took on the role in addition to its existing responsibilities. In celebration of the show’s 25th anniversary, audience members were able to participate in a live game of jeopardy which included Variety Show history, performer trivia and random trivia.
Joelle Cruver, a sophomore pre-professional art therapy major and the president of SAC, served as one of the show’s co-hosts.
“We kind of took on the theme of ‘from the archives,’” Cruver said. “That influenced how we hosted as well, because we decided to learn a little bit more about Variety Show history and play trivia and jeopardy with that, just as a way to tie that in together to make it more engaging.”
SAC also honored the show’s anniversary with a photo booth that featured pictures taken over the span of its 25 year history.
Additionally, competing and non-competing categories were reintroduced with the goal of rekindling greater diversity in the types of student groups that participate. To qualify for the competing category, groups were required to perform an act centered around a cohesive narrative. The non-competing category was less stringent and allowed for a wider array of performances. Blank Slate, which did not host as in previous shows, participated in the non-competing category alongside the EDGE program.
As is standard for the show’s programming, the night culminated with an awards ceremony. Under the reinstated rules, only groups in the competing category were eligible for most awards. Chi Omega, in addition to winning Best Technical Ability and Best Choreography, was announced as the show’s overall winner.
Eva Bedell, a senior public relations major and choreographer for Chi Omega, has performed in Variety Show for three years and attested to the unity it can provide an organization.
“There are so many different personalities and gifts that are represented, I think, in at least how we do it,” Bedell said. “We have people doing hair, people doing makeup, people running errands and then obviously you have people that dance and sing. And so, just because you don’t feel like you have some sort of outward talent that can be shown on stage, there’s still so many different elements to it that I think fit a lot of different gifts that people have.”
In addition to fostering camaraderie within participating groups, Variety Show brings people from all sectors of campus together with its routinely high attendance.
“Variety Show, in my opinion, is the one event that you truly see all of campus come together. You have a variety of people from different groups and organizations come together to put this on and work together for it,” Cruver said. “Spending all that time on this one project really helps bring people together, I think, and it’s just an exciting fun event outside of school that we get to put work towards, so I think it’s fulfilling in that way as well.”