
MU After Dark events took a $12,000 budget cut this year after losing its cooperate sponsorship, but staff believe student participation is increasing.
Last year, the University allotted $42,000 to MU After Dark activities, which are held every Friday at the Memorial Union in Tempe. The amount has been reduced to $30,000 this year, staff members said.
MU After Dark Executive Director Casey Clowes said Wells Fargo sponsored the events until their contract ended in spring 2012.
Clowes, a public service and public policy and women’s studies junior, said Wells Fargo is no longer ASU’s official banking partner and is not looking to renew the contract.
MU After Dark is free to students every Friday from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m.
Clowes estimated student attendance is about 1,000 each Friday during the fall semester. There can be as many as six events each evening that students can attend over the five-hour period, splitting the audience.
During the 2011-12 academic year, the activities saw a 27 percent increase in student attendance from the previous year, Clowes said.
MU After Dark is now in its third year of event planning.
She said a majority of the people that attend the After Dark events are freshmen.
“The events are a fun way to meet people,” Clowes said. “It’s stress-reducing.”
Students who attend the events said the crowds seem sparse, possibly as a result of the number and duration of events.
Global studies freshman Megan McCoy said she has enjoyed the MU After Dark events so far, but that the turnout is not the best.
“It could always be better if there were more people,” she said.
Communication junior Danny Zamora is the director of special events at MU After Dark, and said the students planning the events always come up with great theme ideas.
Themes for the Friday night events range from carnival to movie night.
“Students get so many different tastes at the events,” he said.
Graduate student Garrett Friedrich serves as an adviser to the students planning MU After Dark events.
Friedrich said he loves watching the students craft thematic nights.
“(The MU After Dark events) are a great opportunity to show that ASU doesn’t die as soon as classes get out on Friday afternoon,” Friedrich said. “There is still a lot of student life on the weekends on campus.”
Reach the reporter at hblawren@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @hannah_lawr