Hello. My name is Eric Griffith and I am the Chairman of UPAC Cinema and work a lot with the various UPAC organizations on campus. In addition, I am a member of the Union Executive Board. Ariana is allowing me to use her column to tell you about UPAC’s upcoming event this weekend. For those of you not familiar with UPAC, I will begin with a little bit of information and details concerning its current operations.
UPAC stands for Union Programming and Activities Committee. It is designated as a standing subcommittee of the Union Executive Board in the E-Board’s bylaws. It is currently comprised of six sub-organizations: Mother’s Wine Emporium, UPAC Concerts, UPAC Comedy, UPAC Sound, UPAC Lights, and UPAC Cinema. Each of these committees is responsible for its own programming decisions, but all are beginning to coordinate their activities with the other UPACs. Mother’s Wine Emporium brings in a variety of folk, blues, and other types of acoustic acts. Most Friday or Saturday nights during the semester, you can find one of their shows going on down in Mother’s on the Rathskellar level of the Union. UPAC Concerts brings in more mainstream bands and hosts several “Battle of the Bands” events each year, where campus bands come to show off their talent. UPAC Comedy, as the name implies, brings in comedians as well as other comedic and novelty acts to perform a few times each semester. UPAC Cinema shows 35mm movies almost every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday during the school year. UPAC Sound and UPAC Lights do the lighting and sound reinforcement for a number of activities on the campus.
This Saturday, we are coming together to put on a show that features each of the UPAC organizations. We are all pretty excited about this event as it marks the first time in quite sometime that the UPAC organizations have come together to put on an event. We are calling it the UPAC Main Stage. In Mother’s Wine Emporium Roy Atkinson will be performing from 8 pm until approximately 10:30 pm. UPAC Comedy is bringing in Jamie Lissow, a stand-up comedian, to the McNeil Room. Beginning at 10 pm, Within Reach, a campus band, will kick off its set in the McNeil room. Between the comedian and the band, UPAC Cinema will be showing a few award winning shorts: More, In the Box, Passengers, and Hate.
We are all looking forward to a successful event and plan to make this the first in a long line of exciting UPAC Main Stages. Our current plans call for a similar, but even larger scale event, once or twice every year. So, if you enjoy this Saturday, be sure to join us in the fall for our next big show. We hope to see all of you there this Saturday and would like to invite all of those interested in getting hands on experience with quality professional sound and lighting equipment to stop by at noon for training with UPAC Lights and UPAC Sound.
