Credit: Courtesy of Rosa Racevskis
Student radio club AROUSE is hosting a Halloween show at house venue “The Carousel” Friday to celebrate the holiday festivities.
Local indie bands Sour Fiction, Leghorn, Nemesis and Coldfoot will play as students party the night away.
Students are “strongly encouraged” to come dressed up and to participate in the costume contest, according to the club’s Instagram post.
“I’ve always wanted to do a Halloween show because the energy around Halloween is always so unique,” Jose Galeana, solo artist of Sour Fiction, said. “The fact that it’s a college house show usually means that the crowd is gonna be excited and just generally fun.”
Mathew Hollis, guitarist and vocalist for Leghorn, said AROUSE events were some of the first shows the band members attended in the area. He said no other group brings people together like AROUSE events and he looks forward to being one of the performers.
“AROUSE puts on great shows and packs the place out,” Hollis said. “Starting out as a band, we [had] always looked up to the acts playing these gigs and so when they reached out to us, we immediately said yes.”
Rosa Racevskis, a third-year in psychology and vice president of AROUSE, said she is looking forward to hosting the event.
“I’m really excited for the decorations, our artboard this year is very talented,” Racevskis said. “Halloween is my favorite holiday, so I’m extra excited. With the decorations, everybody in costume, I think it’s gonna be packed — I think it’s the vibe and it’s gonna be spooky.”
Brady Virtue, a fourth-year in data analytics and magazine director of AROUSE, said house shows are an “integral part’ of the organization.
“When it comes to college student radio, you know, indie dirtbag, this is kind of the core of it,” Virtue said.
AROUSE hosts a variety of house shows throughout the year, including a Welcome Back show in September. Racevskis said she hopes AROUSE provides an accessible way for people to attend their first house show.
“There’s so much space to just hang out, socialize,” Racevskis said. “If you don’t want to get anywhere near the bands or loud music, you forgot your earplugs or you just don’t want any part of that — it’s overstimulating [and] it’s going to be hot down there — you can just chill.”
Racevskis said the Halloween show is making a comeback this year after the last show in October 2023. AROUSE was unable to host in 2024 as they were unable to find a house venue willing to host the show, which Racevskis said is essential to the event.
“It can be difficult to be a house venue — it can get kind of rowdy from time to time, right?” Racevskis said. “A lot of people just are not willing to take that risk. We’re so exceptionally grateful for people who are.”
Virtue and Racevskis said the shows are a great way to bring the community together with a larger outreach than the club’s general body meetings. Virtue said he estimates that the last Halloween show sold nearly 500 tickets.
“These [shows] are our biggest population of anything we do,” Virtue said. “Our gen body pulls in maybe 10% of the people that come to these shows … it’s fun [and] it’s easy to talk to anybody there.”
Racevskis said that shows are more “socially cohesive” and can provide a space to talk to people they may have not met otherwise. She said that the event’s festivities, such as the costume contest, can help spark conversations and relationships.
“That’s something [for people to talk about],” Racevskis said. “[Like] ‘Hey, I love your costume,’ ‘where’d you get that skirt from? That’s so cool,’ or ‘I love that TV show, I had no idea nobody knew about it.’”
Virtue said house shows represent classic college tradition.
“I think it’s a timeless part of the college experience,” Virtue said. “I think your parents might have been to a show like this, you could go to a show like this, and your kids could go to a show like this — this is generational.”
Doors open at 7 p.m. and tickets cost $8 upon entry. The address can be found by sending a message to the AROUSE Instagram account.
