2015 - February 16, Lunar New Year Festival
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Event Information
- Logistics - Jimmy Zeng (jimmy42@mit.edu)
- Food - Yaning Zhang (yzhang17@mit.edu)
- Decorations/Performances - Grace Li (grace_li@mit.edu)
- Booths - Cynthia Lo (cyntlo@mit.edu)
- Mini Mystery Hunt - Runpeng Liu (rliu42@mit.edu)
- Date - February 16th, 2015 from 7-9pm (moved from 02/15 at the same time)
- Location - MacGregor Dining (moved from Lobdell)
Logistics
Funding Full funding from LEF/ARCADE. Post-Report has been submitted. There exists a copy on the Google Drive.
Room reservation
- Book Lobdell about two years in advance (if using Lobdell)
- Meet with CAC manager in mid-January to discuss layout
- Event registration completed through Atlas
- We got an one-day entertainment license from the City of Cambridge (done at 831 Mass Ave after all the MIT-side registration is complete) - this is a $50 fee for having entertainment and charging for entrance.
Performances
Groups Performances were canceled due to location change and inclement weather
MIT Asian Dance Team - 2 dances MIT Lion Dance MIT Syncopasian
Equipment
We were booking A/V with ACA sound (~$200). Needs to be run by a member of exec.
Notes
Kevin Ng provided a playlist of Chinese movie music using YouTube.
Be sure to contact performing groups as early as possible. Follow up with them early and often! We canceled our groups and a little bit of difficulty getting the message out to all of our performers.
JoJo Taipei arrived promptly with the food! We told them to make food for ~100 people, which was enough to feed about 130 people decently. Remember to ask JoJo for less spicy food!
We were snowed in and used Google Express to obtain our Costco items. NOTE: Costco account holder name must match credit card holder name when ordering using Google Express.
Colin Codner's procurement card was rejected. Be careful that the trust fund is on hand to shoulder costs if Colin cannot.
Food
$1200 worth of food from JoJo Taipei
2 trays of each of the following:
- White Rice
- Vegetable Lo Mein
- String Beans
- Salt and Pepper Pork Ribs
- Mapo Tofu
- Spicy Fish Filet
- Taiwanese Cold Noodles
- Three Cup Chicken
1 Tray of the following:
- Scallion Pancakes
Other homemade food:
- Almond cookies (~300) - made the day before. We didn't need that many cookies. 150 would have sufficed just fine.
- Bubble Tea (2 pots) - made the day of. Chinatown did not have boba, but we had some in the McCormick Kitchen, which we used.
Almond Cookies
* http://chinesefood.about.com/od/dessertcookies/r/almondcookies.htm
Puzzle Hunt
We reduced the puzzles this year to keep them from becoming the sole focus of attention. They were written by Runpeng (+1 from Victor). Twilio setup was not 100% complete.
Decorations and Setup
We had major changes to the event, so we revamped setup in our planning, then changed it again last-minute to adjust to MacGregor Dining.
Tables
- 50"x108" Red Tablecloths - Made Lobdell look SUPER fancy!
- We ran out of tablecloths! D: The circle tables were a little too long and not wide enough. We cut a table cloth in half, and the two halves when rearranged could cover a table.
- Place Cards
- Clare and Tian made placecards for each table.
- Printed out on glossy paper, scored, and folded into a triangle
- Front had a nice image for LNYF
- Back had a welcome note written by Staly and Clare. Basically a "thanks for coming, the ATS family is awesome, by the way here are some of our future events" thing.
- Red Envelopes
- Placed at each seat on the placemat.
- Inside had 1 chocolate coin
- We ordered buttons to be placed in the envelopes too, but there were issues in delivery and we got them the Monday after. (FOREVER HATING NEXT DESK)
- Pocky Vases
- We should probably wash the pocky vases before using them again....
- Super Classy
- Tea Lights
- Placed 2-3 tea lights at each table. Looked really classy. :D
- Chinese Zodiac Placemats
- Reused from last year. We still have a billion more. Like, enough to last 12 more years.
Lobdell Decorations
- Lanterns (used old ones)
- Strung three lines of lanterns across the banisters
- Lanterns take a pretty significant amount of time/volunteers to string
- Big Poster
- Clare designed a big poster and printed it out using Course 4 printers. (see historian photos)
- Lobdell has a spotlight on the second floor balcony. It looks really nice shined on the poster!
- Chuang Lian
- Reused the chuang lian made by Clare, Eva, and Tian from last year
- Placed on the entrance doors to Lobdell
Setup Notes
- Event started at 7pm
- People began gathering at Next and McCormick at 4pm, arrived at Lobdell ~4:15PM
- Clare, Landon, and Staly went to Walker at ~3:30 to gather stuff (chafing dishes/racks, sternos, lanterns, placemats, vases, tablecloths)
- Food divided into two lines, one line went up the ramp immediately to the right of the entrance, the other up the steps. For the most part people ignored the ramp and proceeded to jump over chairs to get to the other side of the tables instead. Pictures available.
- Devoted space in the center (like NightMarket) for performances
- Devoted space to exec and volunteer storage in the far corner next to the food lines
- A handful of people occupied tables on the top balconies - mostly puzzlers
- Tables near the windows on the second floor were decorated but unoccupied.
Attendance & Ticket Sales
Notes
General Notes
- Perhaps at ticket sale booths, ask if people want a doorsign! If they didn't get it at the beginning of the year, they basically have no other chance to get one. Then have them at the front desk during the event.
- Puzzle hunt is a fun and unique feature of ATS LNYF but people don't form teams outside of their social groups and it can distract a little from the performances.
- Consider merging LNYF and Family Potluck, a more family-centric event, open it to the MIT public but encourage them to join an ATS family? There's already our huge public event Strait to Taiwan and it might not be necessary to have another. LNYF also has us sort of pub battling with CSC with their Lunar New Year Banquet.
