Night Market 2017

At 6:30 pm sharp, string lights lit and booths in place, students poured in through the check in lines and APASA Night Market commenced. Emcees Casey Huang and Kyle Dinh took the stage to welcome their fellow Trojans, crack a few dad jokes and let the festivities began.

Last year as intern, I spent most of my time greeting and checking attendees in. Co-Recruitment Director Sarah Kim and I had a blast at check-in, yet being an e-boarder running the event this time around felt significantly different. Set up is never easy, but luckily it went smoothly thanks to the hard work and efforts of our interns and e-boarders. As the Business Relations Chair, I was in charge of setting up our Soylent bottles, Hi-Chew candies and greeting the representatives of Health-Ade Kombucha.

Once the event began, floods of students filled McCarthy Quad to watch the amazing performers, eat great food and participate in our member orgs’ booths. I personally really enjoyed watching people try Troy Phi’s tinkling booth, as it’s such a fun way to learn more about a culture. But back at my booth, people were concerned with whether the Chai or Cacao Soylent tasted better. Surprisingly, many people were very interested in trying Soylent and even stated that they attended Night Market just for Soylent. We gave away 460 bottles within an hour and a half. Hi-Chew didn’t run out as quickly but still received great reception, as the nostalgic snack reminded many people of their childhood.

I applied to be an APASA intern simply because of the Night Market Promotional Video that was attached to the application, so Night Market has special meaning to me. Seeing people so happy at this event inspired me to want to join an organization that focuses on educating and enlightening students through fun programs.

APASA should always evaluate and improve upon its events to grow, but I believe that Night Market 2017 was quite a success. A girl came up to me on her way out just to tell me how great the event was, which truly showed me how much of an impact our events have on student life. Though it was a long, tiring process up until everything was put back into PB, I cannot wait to see what Night Market has in store next year.

Check out the pictures from this year's Night Market in this slideshow!