The events hosted by the Campus Activities Board (CAB) have seen a steady rise in attendance this year thanks to a number of factors.

The semester got off to a good start with attendance numbers at Welcome Week activities exceeding expectations.  Director of Student Activities Landon Adams said they under-planned for the Kickoff Cookout, the Welcome Week Toga Party, Campus Craze and the Welcome Week Picnic.  

He said student card scans were taken at the Welcome Week Picnic and the number scanned in broke a campus record.

“This year we planned on 1,800 people, and we wound up having 2,150 people scanned in, and I was told by Mike at Sodexo that that’s the most people they’ve ever fed for a picnic,” he said.   

Attendance is being measured by student card scans, but Adams says this isn’t always accurate because of attendees from outside campus or students who don’t scan in.  He cited the performance of magician Michael Kent as an example.

“With Michael Kent, the community turnout was phenomenal,” he said. “We had a bus of about 30 middle schoolers show up so none of them would have scanned in.”  He said the second magician Southern hosted, Daniel Martin, had an even better turnout.  He said the reason for two magicians was based on student interests and was simply a coincidence in scheduling.  

Another major event hosted by CAB was the laser light show at the football game they had planned 500 in attendance but ran out of tickets.

“We really haven’t had any flops yet, knock on wood,” he said, although the attendance at Kazual and Mission Improvable was less than he’d personally anticipated, but CAB was pleased with the turnout.

Adams took his post last summer and began pushing social media efforts, which he attributes to the rise in attendance.  CAB created a Twitter account and a newsletter to work alongside an existing Facebook page in order to push campus events.  

Adams reported that since the advent of the Twitter page, followers have grown 55 percent since August, and that the newsletter has gained a following of about 1,300 people in same time period.  He said that Facebook “likes” have grown 28 percent since the semester began.

He said another marketing strategy is pushing freshman attendance.  “With Missouri Southern, the habits you get students in early on are the habits they’ll keep throughout college, and so the big thing for us, and we’re trying to market to everyone, but our huge focus this semester has been to present to every UE class.”

CAB activities are funded by the $25 students activities fee charged to all full-time students each semester.

“That fee is divided into three places.  It’s divided into the picnic budget, it’s divided into Student Senate’s budget, and basically our events budget,” said Adams. “If you’re coming to events, it’s very easy to get that value back.”