Last Friday, November 8, Colgate Activities Board (CAB) held the annual Colgate’s Got Talent competition in the Palace Theatre downtown. This showcase gave students the opportunity to show off their talents and compete for cash prizes. While the event was fun and rewarding, co-president of CAB’s Special Event committee, Lela Heza, explained how the event took a lot of effort to put together:

“It took a while to get people to sign up, which by far was the hardest part. So we did a campus distribution,” Heza said. “In general we have a hard time publicizing events, but this one in particular was difficult. So then we reached out to groups on LinkedIn, especially dance groups and singing groups and had the group leaders email their members the application and then we went to last years’ participants and we had a lot of first-years sign up. Then we had to order food and book The Palace [Theater].”

While there were many aspects that were necessary to make the event a success, Heza believes that the hardest part was getting students to participate. But once people signed up, the rest of the process came together fairly easily. Heza explained how the event went especially well due to the professionalism of The Palace’s staff:

“The biggest part was getting people there and having them sign up for sound check times and making sure that we had all of the equipment that they needed,” Heza said. “The Palace was awesome. They know what they’re doing and they ran it really well. In the end it went out without a hitch and was very successful.”

10 acts performed at the event. The performers included dancers, a band, singers, a beat boxer and a DJ. Even though several of the acts were similar, they each brought a new concept to the show, such as the modern and Tahitian dancers. In the end, Body Electric won the contest, while the beat boxer came in second and a vocalist received third place. Overall, Heza thinks the event was stressful, but was worth it when she got to experience the finished result. It was especially satisfying when seeing how much the performers and audience alike were enjoying themselves and were able to push themselves outside of their comfort zones.

“It stressed me out, but watching it unfold the night of was very nice,” Heza said. “It was nice to see that it worked and that people were enjoying themselves on the stage. Some of the performers were just so happy that people were there seeing their talents and appreciating it. There was one kid who was apparently virtually silent in his First-Year Seminar, and then he goes up there and was an amazing beat boxer. People were screaming for him and it was the best part.”

Contact Erin Mincer at [email protected].