“Thursday night is my favorite night of the weekend!” a group of girls shouts while jumping on one of the many school buses parked outside of the Olin School of Business late on the night of Thursday, Feb. 23.
Unbeknownst to many high school students, Thursday night kicks off the college weekend, especially at the University, where the club scene rules. Due to the prevalence of individual students putting forth their own cash to fund buses, clubs around St. Louis are becoming the place to be for some Thursday night fun.
Sophomore Megan Eberhard recently joined the echelon of students funding these private parties with her Spyglass party on Feb. 23. While Eberhard asserted that the endeavor did take up a fair amount of time in planning and caused a lot of pre-night stress, she is excited to continue opening up clubs for University parties.
Eberhard went through a few different steps to end up with the popular dance party she provided, which ended up hosting about 350 Wash. U. students. Her first choice involved the venue.
“I initially started calling around to a few places, trying to get the best deal that I could,” said Eberhard. “I wanted to get the best returns.”
Eberhard finally decided on Spyglass, a new bar located in the Central West End, which she believes has recently started trying to open up their clientele to include more University students. She describes the ease of planning her party, highlighting that Spyglass helped her a lot with the arrangements.
“Tom, the owner, is really willing to work with you,” said Eberhard. “Spyglass told me that if I didn’t make this much money, they would give me some of the bar tabs. The other clubs are stricter with their rules.”
Spyglass may also see a boom in popularity due to the legal conflicts other area clubs have seen recently. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Vault, another Central West End dance club that used to be on the University’s club circuit, was been penalized with a 70-day liquor license suspension since late December for allegedly allowing several women to expose themselves publicly for the taping of a “Girls Gone Wild” episode. This suspension was appealed until a hearing in mid-February.
Club Ten14, another popular venue for University student parties, has run into opposition from residents for extending hours until 3 a.m. at their Washington Avenue location, said the Post-Dispatch.
Club owner Kip Fischer told the Post-Dispatch that he would probably go out of business if he couldn’t stay open past the current 1:30 a.m. closing time.
It seems as though University student parties have helped increase the community’s awareness of these late-night venues.
A lot more goes into organizing the parties than merely picking a venue and paying for the buses. Eberhard believes she spent about 10-12 hours working on the event during the two weeks prior to the party, mostly working on publicity. From posting the event on Facebook, putting up flyers, calling her friends and their friends and sending an Evite to many University students, a number of whom she did not know personally, Eberhard worked to create a buzz about her event.
In the end, Eberhard ended up making a hefty sum of money, much more than covering her costs, but she admitted that she had hoped for more. Eberhard credits the somewhat lower amount of money to the many different parties that were all happening on that Thursday night.
“There were eight buses running [Thursday night] to four different places,” said Eberhard. “That’s ridiculous, and that’s why we didn’t make enough money. We were all splintered up. It would be nice if there was a master calendar of everyone’s parties; we don’t want to compete. We shouldn’t cannibalize on each others’ parties, because there aren’t enough of them.”
Washington University certainly seems to be holding true to the stereotypes about early weekend events for college students. These private club parties may be key in helping to provide yet another facet for the active social student.