Vintage Days gets its place in sun

By Eisa Al Nashmi

The 14 student coordinators for Vintage Days 2004, along with three staff members, have announced the theme for the annual event, a weeklong campus celebration that features a crafts fair, music and food.

“ Under the Vintage Sun” will be the theme for next year’s Vintage Days, which the group decided on after spending a weekend at a retreat in Bass Lake.

The retreat was designed to create a bond between the coordinators and teach them to plan and organize the event, said Frankie Moore, student leadership and activities adviser.

With red and yellow being the primary colors of Vintage Days, Moore said the sun was the most appropriate theme because it incorporated ideas from every committee.

“ Instead of having ‘Battle of the Bands,’ the concerts committee might call it the ‘Battle Under the Sun’ or ‘Sun Wars,’” Moore said. “We can also sell some T-shirts with the sun theme on them for Boomtown and the crafts fair.”

During the retreat, Moore said the coordinators established calendars for setting meetings and deadlines, learned about how to develop a finance budget and use it to make a profit, shared the history of Vintage Days by looking at news articles from the 1980s and took a marketing lesson that taught them how to advertise and promote their events.

Rodolfo Cardenas, Vintage Days concerts coordinator, said he didn’t want to be a coordinator at first, but when he went to last year’s event, he said he thought things could have been done better.

Cardenas didn’t see a whole lot of students in the previous Vintage Days, he said.

“ My only goal is to diversify the annual event by getting more students involved,” he said.

Next year, Cardenas said he is considering having battles for pop and hip-hop amateurs.

Cardenas’ biggest goal for the concert committee is to try to bring a major act to Fresno State, he said.

“ If I am able to bring a big band to Fresno State, it may higher up the stake for future Vintage Days coordinators,” he said.

During the retreat, Chris Gouveia, Vintage Days development coordinator, learned how to get sponsorships and donations from companies.

“ I am trying to sell our image to major companies so they can help out in this big event,” Gouveia said.

Gouveia is currently in the process of sending sponsorship packages and letters to companies who they believed might sponsor the event or donate money and prizes.

Gouveia said all the coordinators are fired up and can’t wait to start working.

“ We will shoot for the highest and we are all united on that goal,” he said.

More students are involved in managing and organizing Vintage Days this year, Moore said. This year, several committees have co-coordinators, which means having more ideas and making it easier to get things done.

Moore said the coordinators are now looking for student subcommittee members. Interested students can get an application from USU room 306 or call 278-2741 for more information.