Although this year's Senior Week will feature many old traditions, the 2012 Class Council has replaced Racer-X with a performance by DJ Sex Ray Vision.
Racer-X, which performed during the fall semester and last Thursday for Ivies, has customarily been a part of the Senior Week festivities. After perusing the E-Board's list of artists, the council seized the opportunity to offer something different and booked mash-up artist Sex Ray Vision.
"Why do we need to see Racer-X twice in one month?" asked Matt Ramos '12, Class Council vice president.
Josh Kim '12, Class Council president, said that Milkman's popularity at Ivies bodes well for Sex Ray Vision.
"It's definitely indicative of what type of music Bowdoin likes to party to. Sex Ray Vision will hit that spot pretty well," he said.
Furthermore, both Kim and Ramos mentioned that the cost for Racer-X has gone up since last year. Adam Matula '12, Class Council treasurer, said Racer-X requested roughly $1,000 more than Sex Ray Vision.
"We just wanted to have enough money to make all of Senior Week as fun as we could, so we wanted to kind of cut corners," Matula said. Sex Ray Vision will kick off the week's festivities in Morrell Lounge on Sunday, May 20.
Every year, class councils receive $30 from each student's tuition to go toward events and class gifts. Although the Class Council's exact budget had not been released by press time, the Class of 2012 has saved enough over the past four years to completely pay for all but three Senior Week events.
"The most expensive thing that we're doing is a rafting and paintballing trip," said Matula. "Where you get there and you either choose to do paintball for a day, or go on a white water rafting trip for a day."
The Class Council is prepared to charge seniors $25 for this trip, which Matula added is "somewhere between one-half and one-third of the actual cost for the event."
"If we didn't charge, it would be $10,000 or $12,000...which is a huge portion of our budget," he added.
The Casco Bay boat cruise and the Portland pub crawl are expensive because of the high cost of transportation.
"It costs over $5,000, close to $6,000, to transport our entire class, even to Portland," Matula said.
Matula also noted that the cost to individual seniors "should be no more than $35 if you go to all the events during Senior Week."
Nate Hintze, associate director of student activities, stressed that class councils should not worry about funding Senior Week before their senior years.
"I don't want students to stress out about Senior Week money, because there's going to be enough money," he said. "They should really focus on planning good events and fun events over their years here."
"I'm never going to tell a group you can't bring or you should bring an act, I'm going to let them choose what they think is best for the class," Hintze added.
The 2012 Class Council inherited a detailed template of previous Senior Week activities from Grant Easterbrook '11, president of the 2011 Class Council.
"Coming from a bunch of different friend groups, we kind of polled our friends to see what people thought," Ramos said.
He noted that "people are stuck on tradition," referring to the Casco Bay boat cruise, Portland pub crawl, and the First Chance and Last Chance dances, all of which are currently on the schedule. However, the group is also branching from the norm.
This year's events will center more on Brunswick, and will include a Brunswick pub crawl and a 'May Day' that will consist of music, kegs and outdoor games.
Kim said a laser-tag company will set up an arena in Morrell Gym on Tuesday, May 22. In addition to an obstacle course in the arena, the Class Council is working on setting up fog machines, for which they will have to turn off the smoke alarms and hire a Brunswick fireman to monitor the area.