Having high expectations for an event that is unpredictable will diminish the greatness of the event. During the spring semester there are usually two events that students look forward to: Whiteout Weekend and OzFest. However, this year, there was a new highly anticipated event: the solar eclipse. Whiteout Weekend and OzFest are promoted with various posters around campus, Instagram posts from the men’s ice hockey page and promotional items such as T-shirts, towels and other free goods.  The purpose of  these items are to get people excited about the event and ultimately to attend them because who does not like free stuff. However, is it worth it? Are the free things and the hype around the event worth it, if the event does not live up to what is said to. Similar to Whiteout Weekend and OzFest, the solar eclipse was heavily promoted. 

There were posters in every building and messages urging people to get their glasses to protect their eyes for this special event. There were messages in the dining halls, dining areas (e.g., Crossroads, Palettes, Lake Effect), box office, library, and different front desks, that spoke about the eclipse and how they would be temporarily closing so that staff members would be able to experience the eclipse. There were also different events planned for that day such as the solar eclipse watch party and a national eclipse ballooning project launch that released a balloon every hour on the hour from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., as well as different eclipse books and lecturing playing. If all those methods did not work, then the canceling of classes should have done the trick. People would be curious about why classes are canceled and then ultimately find out about the eclipse. 

With so much attention on this special eclipse, people would naturally have high expectations for it. They expect to see the image that they have been bombarded with since the beginning of the semester, the thing that has everyone so excited. However, the day of the event, the cloudy skies left some people disappointed. While I was at the watch party on campus I could hear students saying “what was the purpose of these glasses? I can’t see anything,”  “are the purpose of the glass is so we don’t see anything,” “we’re missing it. Oh my gosh, we’re missing it,” “what am I supposed to see,” or a sarcastic remark such as “I see so much.”

I think people are so caught up in their expectations that they missed the fact that the entire sky got very dark and the sunset looked phenomenal and then got brighter. That in itself is cool because how many times can you say that that has happened? Probably not a lot because it does not happen frequently and in fact this solar eclipse was a rare event seeing as we had totality. Although the clouds were in the way for the majority of the time, towards the end, you were able to see the eclipse with the glasses on and from what I saw that was cool. It was interesting to see the little peek of light hiding behind the moon. Also, it was good to know that the glasses actually have a purpose because I was convinced that they did not have any use. 

Overall, the event would have been more interesting if the expectations of the people attending were not that high. If the event did not promote that cool picture then people would not have known what to expect and would have been happy with whatever they saw instead of disappointed in only catching a glimpse or being upset with the turn out. Therefore for future events, they should lessen the promotion a bit instead of having it in everyone’s face or be mindful of the imagines that they use to promote the event. This will be helpful in the future, especially for something like OzFest and the mystery performer. We do not know how well they will perform and going in with high expectations may ruin that experience. It is good to have expectations on some things, but when it comes to things like this it is best to come in with lower expectations and then adjust them accordingly.

Photo by: Allan Carvalho via Pexels