Pumpkin guts, crime scene analysis and more with the multi-club Halloween Bash

Kaysea Suzana | Assistant Entertainment Director 

FIU got spooky this Halloweekend. 

The multi-club Halloween Bash, hosted by a collaboration of clubs such as the Garden Club, Sigma Phi Alpha, the Fresh Club, the Hearts Art club and the Geek Culture club, got creepy with food, games and more on Friday, Oct. 27. 

Along with keeping the vibes scary, clubs made sure to stay in the spotlighting by Halloween-theming their displays. 

Caroline Rey, Secretary of the Garden Club and majoring in liberal studies, told PantherNOW about keeping guts from going to waste. 

“We provide the pumpkins for the event, as well as the tools. From these pumpkins, the guts will be collected and used for composting and personal use later,” Rey said.

Students were able to get a visceral handling of pumpkins with the pumpkin carving, where they would cut the flesh into designs like cats, faces, or other aesthetics. 

This is the second year that FIU clubs have hosted Halloween Bash. 

“We started doing this actually, last year. With the collaboration of clubs, we officially began Halloween Bash, and it went well; it was popular and a lot of people were interested in the carving, especially first timers,” Rey said.

The Geek Culture Club’s Public Relation’s manager and junior criminal justice major, Kimberly Gomez, talked about GCC keeping Halloween geeky for the night. 

“”Our involvement is the organization of the karaoke segment and the cosplay runway. The songs can be anything ranging from k-pop to metal. Cosplay can be anything whether it’s anime-related or whether it’s monsters. Anything geeky, like video games,” Gomez said.

Gomez also emphasized the importance of the club’s cross-cultural focus.

“That’s the thing about the GCC and why we’re collaborating – because we want people from different clubs to interact, and there’s other clubs out there that people can expand their support network with,” Gomez mentioned.

Present at the event was also Alpha Phi Sigma, the Criminal Justice Honors Society. Hipolito Angel Calero, a criminal justice major and chapter president, talked about capitalizing off of the holiday’s gruesome reputation.

“We wanted to draw students that may have had a piqued interest in CSI, those, you know, crime scene shows. We actually have an event hosting that’s supposed to simulate a crime scene,” Calero said.

What Calero refers to is forensics crime scene analysis, depicted by the club through its methodical crime scene consisting of a body’s chalk line, and displayed evidence meant to challenge students to solve the murder mystery.

Jaydon Antoine, junior Computer Engineering student and Vice President of the Fresh Club spoke about the importance of the Bash as a networking opportunity.

“In a sense, we realize that there are a lot of students that kind of feel left out. Especially with international students or freshmen that find it hard to make friends and get used to campus. This event is an extension of that; having big events for people to get together and have fun,” Antoine said.

Various students attended donning different outfits, from the creative mashup of a goth and a cowboy to even the caricature of a hotdog. Some students chose to wear pop-culture icons ranging from the iconic Spider-Man to even popular anime Jujutsu Kaisen character Toji Fushiguro.