Monster Mash: First-time event held at Hydaway

Spooky music, murmurs and complex costumes graced the Hydaway Outdoor Center on Saturday, Oct. 29, when Hydaway hosted the first Monster Mash event at Liberty University. 

The event, organized and put on by Student Activities, was Liberty’s only Halloween event of the year. 

“From my knowledge, this is the first-ever Halloween event here at Liberty,” Justin Gibble, an event supervisor for Student Activities, said. “We really wanted to put on something special to mark the occasion.”

At Monster Mash, students had the opportunity to intermingle and share each other’s passions through each of their unique and creative costumes. 

Students wore a variety of costumes from superheroes to animals. One student, sophomore Abigail Winstead, said that seeing the creativity in costumes was one of her favorite parts of the event.

“I absolutely love meeting other students and really seeing everyone’s individual personalities come out through what they choose to dress up as,” Winstead said.

Aside from the costumes, Student Activities’ Monster Mash had many different kinds of festivities and activities for the attendees to enjoy. Some of these activities included carnival games like a bottle ring toss, a strongman competition, a stuffed clown ball toss and a beanbag toss. A large movie screen served as a place to display questions for a trivia game and later as a movie screen to show the movie “Monster House.” A 20-minute hayride also provided students a tour of the Hydaway Outdoor Center grounds.

However, the main event of the night was a Halloween table decorating competition. Students had the opportunity to register for a table before the event, and each group decorated its table to a theme of their choosing. 

The individual tables then hosted trick-or-treating, where costumed students could walk around and observe each table’s theme and collect some candy. 

Each student received a Student Activities token they could use to vote on their personal favorite table of the night. The table with the most votes received a $200 Waffle House gift card.

First-year Liberty student Brandon Paz hosted one table. He and his group flexed their creative muscles and put together a table based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” series. 

Despite the competitive energy inspired by the chance to win a gift card, Paz appreciated the community that brought all of the creativity under one event.

“One of the biggest things I’ve loved here is connecting with students,” Paz said. “No matter the fandom, culture, clique or group, students just showed up and connected with each other creatively. … This community is one of my favorite things about Liberty.”

For more information on Student Activities events like these, click here. 

Rolfsen is a news reporter for the Liberty Champion. Follow him on Twitter