Despite the chilly autumn evening, with around 200 students in attendance, the crowd at the third annual Monte Mash was lively, seemingly eager to watch some of Cal State Monterey Bay’s (CSUMB) musicians perform and compete in a costume contest.
“It’s late October, so of course it’s gonna be a little cold, but at least it’s not raining,” said. Reuben Rodriguez, dean of students, who was there enjoying the festivities held at CSUMB’s North Quad on Halloween night.
Indeed, everyone at Thursday’s event stayed dry, which set Monte Mash 3.0 apart from the previous year when irrigation sprinklers went off unexpectedly, dousing the crowd and damaging thousands of dollars in audio and video equipment, prematurely ending the event.
Monte Mash 3.0 represented a comeback of sorts for Otter Media and many of the musicians who performed.
Jillian Hintz, an ethnic and gender studies major and Otter Media’s live events manager, was in charge of last year’s event. Despite last year’s debacle, this time around she says it was refreshing to have the event go smoothly.
“In the end what matters is that everybody comes together to have a good time and Otter Media as a whole is just glad that we are able to bring CSUMB students together and provide them with cool music,” Hintz said.
The lineup for Monte Mash 3.0 included Macadamia, The Mystic Souls, Baby Gap, Uzihtoonice and Devere.
“I couldn’t [perform] last year because the sprinklers went off,” shared The Mystic Souls frontman Bryan Gutierrez. “It felt good making people dance, making people move…it felt like everyone was having a good time.”
This seemed to be the case, with students filling the grass at North Quad, many dressed up in their best Halloween attire. Students dressed as dinosaurs, Jedis, witches, scary clowns–even some bananas– and roamed the quad.
“If I find some other people in banana costumes, I guess we’ll be a bunch,” joked Caleb Ready, a third-year business major dressed as a banana.
“I haven’t had a Halloween where everyone dresses up like this in a while,” said John Meyers, fourth-year marine science major, who was getting ready to change into his costume as Cody Maverick from Surf’s Up. “I have a penguin suit somewhere, I just have to find my backpack,” Meyers added.
Fourth-year global studies major, Cydney Gaither, echoed the enthusiasm for everyones’ costumes. “That’s my favorite part of Halloween…everyone’s here in beautiful costumes and we have beautiful music,” Gaither said.
“That’s what you want to see,” said Rodriguez. “When students put a lot of hard work and effort into an event and it turns out to be a great success.”