Centennial Carnival was resounding success

Aside from a little bit of mizzle — “rain in very fine drops,” according to this year’s Scotch’n’Soda musical The 25th Annual Putnam Country Spelling Bee — the sun shone bright on Carnegie Mellon’s centennial Carnival celebration, which proved to be one of the most satisfying Carnivals in a long time.

Carnival’s standard fare was all solid this year, some of the events even taking things up a notch in honor of the centennial. The comedy show with Hannibal Buress and Tig Notaro, which you can read about on page B5, was a resounding success; Buress, currently one of America’s most sought-after comedians, seemed like he might be out of place at a school full of “socially awkward teenagers,” as he called the student body, but he played off of that stereotype to produce some amazing ad lib.

The Scotch’n’Soda production was also successful, and President Subra Suresh attended for the dinner theater gala performance in honor of the organization’s 75th year. Sweepstakes was more exciting — and well-attended — than ever, although some nasty crashes left some people injured, one instance leaving a driver in the hospital. While Mac Miller was a predictable disappointment, Icona Pop delivered a fantastic performance.

The Carnival Committee brought back some age-old but long-forgotten traditions for the centennial, and while some of them were fairly entertaining — everyone seemed to like the plank jousting over a mud pit — they were not advertised well to the current student body. Not many of the centennial events were made clear to current students and were thus not very well attended. If the committee brings these traditions back in subsequent years, increased advertising and awareness of these events would serve to make them more successful continued traditions.

Booth was a huge improvement from last year, when Midway’s opening ceremony yielded only a smattering of unfinished and disappointing structures. Granted, the weather during build and move-on last year was less than preferable, but SigEp’s Lord of the Rings booth and TSA’s Miyazaki film booth were above and beyond anything from last year.

Overall, the centennial Carnival was an exciting celebration of Carnegie Mellon and the brilliant things our university’s students can accomplish.