Before the night even began, a line spanning from the SUB to the duck pond was awaiting the gates to open for UNM’s Silent Lights, a silent disco held Wednesday night on Zimmerman Plaza.
The event quickly reached capacity with well over 1,000 students in attendance of the rave, despite the rainy weather that came a couple hours earlier. With three DJs and an ice cream truck, the night quickly became one to remember with poi dancers, crowd surfers and a cacophony of red, green and blue lights.
A “silent disco” might sound like an oxymoron, but in reality it is a rave where the music is played through headphones given to those in attendance. In this case, sets of wireless headphones were given to students which had the ability to switch between three stations, one for each DJ performing.
The event was a student-only event as Lobo IDs were offered in exchange for a set of headphones, but with a student body of over 20,000, UNM had no problem filling the expectation of 1,000 in attendance.
The event was a major success, said Justin Cooper, the executive director of Lobo Spirit. As the head of one of the organizing bodies — the other two being ASUNM Student Special Events, and University Communication and Marketing — Cooper said that Silent Lights fulfilled his hopes as far as turnout.
“We really marketed this pretty well. I would walk up to people and they would ask me if I’m going to Silent Lights, so I was really excited because I didn’t get to give them my elevator speech,” Cooper said. “The weather gave us a scare, but I think the event turned out perfectly.”
Silent Lights had students dancing like they were on Miami Beach or in a Berlin nightclub, which came to a surprise to some students, who experienced a side of UNM that they had never experienced.
Marissa Gutierrez, a senior English major, heard of Silent Lights through a professor and later through social media. She said that Silent Lights was a new experience for her, unlike anything she had seen.
“I’ve never really gone to clubs, so I don’t know the experience for it — but I’ve never had a party in my head,” Gutierrez said. “I like that you can take it off (the headphones) and talk casually.”
Gutierrez said she was happy that she came to the event.
“It’s definitely not something I would have expected from them (UNM),” said Alex Cole, a sophomore engineering major. “They always seemed like they liked the more traditional kind of dances, like things you’d see on a TV show.”
The event carried on into the night with everyone in the crowd dancing to the beat of their own DJ. With each passing minute more students came in, nearly causing the staff to run out of headphones.
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To Cooper, Silent Lights was a major success, and he praised the other bodies that helped organize the event — in particular UCAM, which projected a light show on the outside of UNM’s Humanities building that showed the diverse student body at UNM.
“I really like the branding that UCAM did, and I thought that was the coolest thing,” Cooper said.“Because it talks about UNM as a whole and it made me really proud to be a Lobo.”
Students young and old came to Silent Lights to dance with their friends and family to the fantastic music of three talented DJs. With turnout exceeding expectations and weather permitting a clear night, Silent Lights will be remembered as one of UNM’s greatest events yet.
Fin Martinez is the culture editor for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @FinMartinez.
