It’s Spring Quarter, which means CultureFest is right around the corner. The DU 2015 CultureFest, formerly known as Festival of Nations, will be held on April 10 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Driscoll Ballroom. CultureFest is free to attend and open to the public.
Unlike previous years, CultureFest will be on a Friday. This is because it will be complementing the Internationalization Summit, which takes place on Thursday, March 9 and Friday, March 10.
“CultureFest is a DU annual event,” said Emilie Wardrip, a Performance Coordinator of the 2015 CultureFest. “It has been going on for 35 years and this year it is rebranded as CultureFest.”
“It used to be festival of nations, but we rebranded it specifically to be more inclusive of other cultures and not exclude so many student groups on the DU Campus that make up DU culture,” said Wardrip.
There has been a lot of discussion about changing the name of this event.
“The conversation for the change was going all through last year’s Festival of Nations,” said Wardrip. “Once we started collaborating more with the different departments within the office of internationalization we had more connections which helped us create the new logo.”
The new logo helps add to the inclusiveness of CultureFest said Wardrip. “We like the new logo because the people don’t have gender, so it’s all inclusive with whatever gender you identify with. It is also the DU accent colors.”
There are many of new aspects of CultureFest this year. According to Wardrip, CultureFest has been moved back to the Driscoll Ballroom, and the committee is also trying to promote CultureFest across social media with the hashtag, #CultureIs.
The event itself will have many booths, as well as performances.
“You will find very interactive booths,” said Wardrip. “They are mostly made up of DU clubs, but there are some community organizations who have booths as well. Some booths will sell food or drinks. There are a few multicultural sororities participating for the first time this year, as well as some club sports participation.”
“We are really excited for our performance lineup this year,” said Wardrip. “The performances will be going on throughout the entire event.”
Food and drinks will not be free, but they can be bought at the event with tickets from the welcome booth. Each ticket costs one dollar, so plan on buying as many tickets as dollars you want to spend.
