Media Credit: Emily Ferro - Del McCusker (left) and Paul Hurley gear up for Tron Laser Tag
By Emily Ferro-
Welcome week came and went, offering joyous events for newcomers and upperclassmen alike. One event, however, did not take place on welcome week. Due to rain, the date for Tron Laser Tag was changed, and it turned itself into a ‘week-after-welcome-week’ event.
On Monday, September 12th, any student who rounded the corner of O’Hare or McAuley stumbled upon quite a sight. Out on the lawn was a massive yellow inflatable tent in the shape of an igloo. Outside of the tent there was bound to be people enticing students to join in the fun.
After donning the gear and hearing instructions, students were led into the mouth of the dome as fog poured out of the opening. Once inside, the darkness and the fog made it nearly impossible to see anything except the exit and the two home bases. A deep voice boomed in the darkness, giving a final few instructions before the games began.
With 40 shots and three lives, players ran through the darkness, making every effort to capture the other team’s base. At the end of the five minute game, the winner was announced and the chaos was ended. “Green team wins!” called the deep voice in the dome, and all players involved emerged from the tent with smiles on their faces.
At the start of the Laser Tag session, the showing of people was a little sparse, but Sam Gibson, the Tron host for TJohnE, wasn’t worried. “It’ll pick up, I’m sure it will,” he said.
Unfortunately, the event only had 70 participants over the four hours it was available, and Gibson suspects the change of date was to blame. “This is a rain date,” he said. “When there’s a rain date, there’s usually a smaller line.”
According to Gibson, Tron is accustomed to attending college events and it is not uncommon that they have lines of students waiting for over three hours to get a chance to play.
Heather Barbour, Salve’s Director of Student Activities agrees with Gibson that the change of date had a negative effect on the attendance.
The poor attendance did not speak anything about the amount of enjoyment had by those who did participate. “Those who attended had a lot of fun and many teams played more than once,” said Barbour.
There was excitement among the crowd of students emerging from the dome, even those on the losing team. “It was fun, awesome,” commented Paul Hurley. “[I] wish I had won the most points.”
According to Barbour, Student Activities has high hopes for the success of a laser tag event in the future. “We hope to bring the TRON system back for next fall’s welcome week,” she said.
Perhaps without a change of date the event will have more success in the future. The enjoyment of laser tag speaks for itself. Upon arriving at the event, Khari Halliburton gladly announced, “I’m so excited. I saw [laser tag] on a poster and sent a text to my friends.”
Hopefully the news will spread about the joy of playing laser tag and every Salve student will get a chance to enjoy the event next time around.
