A roller rink, haunted house, fair trade night market and visits from actors, performers and musicians such as Josh Peck, Andi Dorfman and Andy Grammer highlighted a successful year for Loyola Marymount University’s Mane Entertainment.
It is the professionalism of the student staff that Katie Seamands of Campus Activities credits for Mane’s success in 2014-15. She commended her student managers for “working tirelessly to find those niche events that will be popular with students.”
Many of the guests Mane Entertainment brings to campus are for its All-Access events, which are Q&A sessions in front of a small audience of LMU students.
Of those guests, many are people the students grew up watching on television or following on the Internet. Peck was familiar to students from his role on Nickelodeon’s “Drake and Josh” while Dorfman (pictured at top with Mane staff) came to fame on ABC’s “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette.” Jenna Marbles, a popular YouTube personality, brought a full crowd to Burns Back Court in November.
“Mane is always searching for new opportunities,” says Seamands, the campus recreation specialist who oversees the Mane staff. “I cannot tell you how many emails our Signature Events Manager sends out each semester trying to get people to come to campus.”
Sara Baczewski, who graduated from LMU in May, joined the Mane staff as a freshman. She recently served as the Signature Events Manager during her senior year. Thanks to her experience at Mane, Baczewski now works as an assistant and day-to-day manager at The MGMT Company.
“The best part of the job was being able to make other people happy by providing awesome entertainment right on campus,” says Baczewski.
In April, singer-songwriter Grammer, who is recognized by Billboard as a top “Artist to Watch,” performed to packed house at St. Robert’s Auditorium. At The Living Room, LMU’s indoor entertainment venue, Mane also hosts open mic nights, DJ sets, stand-up comedy, talent shows and more on a weekly basis.
Seamands attributes the success of Mane Entertainment to “the student managers feeling very comfortable in their roles and being able to understand what the student audience wants and needs.”
“We listen to student feedback and do try to accommodate that,” Seamands adds. “We try to be creative and do the best we can with our budget and have done really well this year.”
A large part of that success has been Mane’s Friday Night Lights series, which is specialized late night programming that takes place on campus one Friday each month. For the 2015-16 fall semester, Mane is planning two Friday Night Lights events each month, according to Seamands.
In total for the 2014-15, Mane Entertainment hosted 62 events on the Westchester campus that were attended by 9,239 students throughout the academic year.
For more information, visit Mane Entertainment on Facebook.
By Nathalie Rubin