Spectrum ALANA Open Mic Sees Low Turnout

By SERIAH SARGENTON
Assistant Editor

The show must go on, even when the audience is small. On Thursday, Feb. 28th Spectrum ALANA held an open mic in MidKnight Eats located at Madison Avenue. The event was free to College of Saint Rose students starting at 7 p.m.

“Being that it’s midterms week, a lot of people are at the library or home working on their assignments, “ said Binta Sangyang, Spectrum secretary.

In addition, she said that people the event was booked the week when everyone is leaving for spring break. It’s possible that people just left home early to avoid traveling in bad weather.

Prior to the event, Saint Rose cancelled classes several times due to inclement weather. Abany alone experienced 3 to 6 inches of snow. Following the bad weather, students experienced days of freezing temperatores which made it difficult for students to feel motivated to step outside after classes ended.

Spectrum booked the open mic prior to the semester starting in December. Sangyang said that the event was intended to be a stress reliever for students to come and relax after a long week of midterms or to come spend time with their friends.

The show kept going with Jalen Parkland hosting and interacting with the Saint Rose community through jokes and interactive rapping. Though the club is known for having crowds of people attend their events, only about 10 people showed up this time.

“I thought it was interesting. I liked the whole premise of the whole event,” said Katelyn Infelice, a freshmen studying clinical psychology at Saint Rose.

Infelice said that the event was slow but she enjoyed show , as the microphone was passed around to each person in the audience. She felt that part of the reason it was a low turnout was because the club had only advertised via flyers and not enough through social media until the day of. She said that people were not showing up to the event, which contributed to the slowness.

There were many components to the show including interactive spoken word, rap, a motivational speech, and karaoke.

Following the spoken word portion of the event, Abdul Mohamed gave a two-minute motivational speech about the importance of cryptocurrency. He said that cryptocurrency accounts such as Bitcoin will be the new banking on the future, He is working to bring SUNY Albany Cryptocurrency Analyst Certified (UACAC) chapter to the campus to teach students how to transition into cryptocurrency.

“See, we are so stuck in the past that we don’t see the future,” said Mohamed.

Tyler Warren, at a senior at Saint Rose sang a karaoke version of “Who’s Loving You” by the Jackson 5.

Warren works for the marketing department at Saint Rose and runs the weekly announcements on the college’s Instagram page where he announces the events happening on campus each week. In addition he said that students were leaving to go home for spring break or not planning to travel in freezing temperatures.

“It’s a good event,” said Warren. “I had friends who were going to sing, and I love karaoke.”