On Saturday April 9, junior engineering physics major, Cameron Schmidt put on the Spring Bash Music Fest at Clare Bank. Schmidt said that approximately 250 people were in attendance at the event.

“This event started as a birthday party for myself and then grew into something bigger and better,” Schmidt said. He then approached Delta Sigma Phi about turning this event into a fundraiser.

According to DSP president and sophomore civil engineering major Kody Kaiser, the fraternity chose to sponsor this event because they decided to stop throwing their annual Deltafest fundraiser. Kaiser said that they always had barely anyone show up [to Deltafest], but that they still wanted to find a way to raise money for the Red Cross. That’s when Schmidt coincidentally contacted them about doing the birthday party as a bigger event.

Kaiser said that DSP choose Red Cross as the charity, because that is their national philanthropy organization.

“We feel like they [Red Cross] are a great organization and we like helping them whenever we can,” Kaiser said.

Alcohol, soda and water were served at the event along with food from the local food truck, Lunch Bus. The Lunch Bus donated some of their proceeds to the Red Cross.

Local band, Better than Good Enough, started off the evening with their rock music. Then the University of Wisconsin-Platteville student based band, The Initial First, played along with Platteville based band the Adam Bartels Band. The Adams Bartels Band replaced The Latchkeys at the last moment after their drummer was admitted to the hospital according to the events Facebook page. Electronic dance music act, Feel trip, anchored the night. Each band played for approximately an hour and a half.

According to Schmidt the bands were picked out because they were the highest quality bands for the lowest amount of money. He then said that the bands ended up playing for free.

DSP paid for the whole thing according to Schmidt and Kaiser. Some of the sponsors of the event included The Underground and t-shirt and entertainment company Wisconsin Red. Also, PHD Entertainment of East Troy donated lights and sounds equipment for the event.

“The event was a blast even though it was freezing and that all the bands were really good,” junior electrical engineering major Alex Giberson said.

Unfortunately, Spring Bash did not reach their goal amount due to the cold weather. However, they were very pleased with the turn out of the event.

[email protected]