FREDx Sets Record for Longest Campus Event

Dartmouth hosted its first independently organized FREDx event this Saturday through Sunday in the Moore Theatre. Although the event was hyped up as "revolutionary", "jaw-dropping" and "ball-busting", it will be remembered as "long" and "endlessly protracted". The conference shattered the college's previous record for the longest campus event, lasting 22 hours beginning Saturday and continuing through Sunday.

Dartmouth has an illustrious history of drawn-out campus events. Henry Cousar '42, the official Dartmouth historian, recounts the former record holder, the 1960 Commencement Ceremony, which due to weather and nuclear threats from the Soviet Union was relocated inside, back to the green and to an underground bunker, before finally finishing on the green. However, this only lasted 20 hours.

Cousar also recalled the now third longest event, a 1954 baseball game against Yale that went 46 innings and included a total of nine hours in delays while the players developed complex plans to retrieve the only ball from a dog nicknamed "the beast" on the other side of the fence. However, this also fell short of the new FREDx benchmark of 22 hours.

These rankings did not take parties over Green Key weekends into account, since according to Cousar "they regularly last over 48 hours" and "are unfair to events like FREDx who put in so much effort into being this drawn out."

Although FREDx's slogan, "This is just a lecture, this is not a fun event", made a sincere effort to convey details, most students were still unsure of what FREDx actually was and if it had a purpose. Brandon Oh '13 viewed it as "an organization that puts up flyers and fills my Hinman with stickers and postcards."

Mary Gobertus '11 was even more uninformed, saying, "I thought it was some sort of pornography casting company that was trying to recruit on campus?"

Will Johnson '11 classified it as "another classic example of Student Assembly dropping 9 grand to flex its programming muscle."

Even FREDx himself seemed unsure, as he constantly put signs up around campus asking, "Who is FREDx?"

However, the over fifty people in attendance quickly learned what FREDx was all about. The conference consisted of 49 of the "most influential speakers in Western New Hampshire and Eastern Vermont" each speaking for "NO LESS THAN 18 MINUTES" and discussing what they are most passionate about. Topics of these talks included climate change, the Boston Red Sox, and great sex. The lineup also included twelve campus performance groups and a screening of The Lion King.

Camden Wrinkelstein '13, the organizer of FREDx and Fred's cousin, called the event "a resounding success". He added, "Our goal was 20 minutes of programming for every person in attendance and we blew that away. I see no reason why FREDx 2011 can't break the 24 hour mark."

Early favorites to surpass FREDx as the longest event in Darmouth's history include the Sun God's 2011 Love Ultramarathon, a pong game between 4 freshmen during next year's orientation, the 5K hike at this year's first year family weekend and your chemistry final.

- Jayson Doubleday '13