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The University Post guide to the 2018 UCPH Spring Festival

Bucket list — On 25 May, 15,000 UCPH students, faculty and staff get together for the annual Spring Festival. Here are 17 things you can do to make sure your festival is a good one

1. Start with the best

If you only make it to one thing at the Spring Festival, make it the Spring Review (Forårsrevyen). Have a laugh with university’s best student actors performing their funniest sketches. The hour-long show also features live music. At Totem.

Starts at 14.15, which is kind of early, so don’t get so caught up in your pre-party, or reading for your exams, or your part-time job.

Be there at 14.15. Or don’t. It’s a free country. But you really should.

2. Come early. Leave late.

The best events (did we mention the Spring Review) are held in the early afternoon, and the best music acts (more about them later) take place later in the day. So be ready to spend the whole day there. There’ll be food. There’ll be loos. What more do you need?

3. Eat up, boys and girls

One thing about the coming early and leaving late thing: we won’t have to twist too many people’s arms to get them to down a few beers, but the solid food does sometimes get overlooked. Make sure you’ve got enough funds to buy something from the food stands.

4. Laugh

There’s a lot of amusing stuff that goes on at a festival: your jokes, your friends’/instructors’/co-workers’ jokes, people who get a bit too much to drink and sit down where the bench would be if it was a metre longer.

And we’d be a laughingstock ourselves if we didn’t mention MAGT, the singing group whose satire is as sharp as their pencils. If you hold power, beware. Bjørnholm, 19.45.

5. Watch the footie

Who will walk away as winner of the University Football Championships and earn the right to set the curriculum at Denmark’s biggest university?

Okay, maybe there’s not quite that much at stake when the faculty face off against their students, but you wouldn’t know it from the pre-match comments.

Kristian Cedervall Lauta, a reader in the Faculty of Law, and the captain of the faculty side, was cited on the Spring Festival Facebook page as saying: “We plan to die with our boots on for the university’s honour. Our side has forwards, backs, examiners and administrators with a licence to expel. We think that gives us an advantage in the match.” The action starts at 14.45 on the football pitch.

6. Drink with the deans

You may have seen a dean in person, but have you ever had one pull a pint for you while also giving you good advice to boot? If not, make your way over to the Dean Bar. Near the football pitch, 15.30-16.30.

7. Heal the World

Spring Festival is more than just a hedonistic romp. It’s also a charitable romp. We’ll be counting on you to sit in on one of the talks behind held in the Heal the World tent and that you’ll come out ready and willing to do your part to help Mother Earth. Two of the university’s professors and the Director for Group Sustainability for a firm whose logo will be emblazoned on every single beer cup will be giving sustainability talks (with no small amount of help from PhD students and university faculty, we should add).

The talks start at 14.30. Show up at 14.00 and you can score yourself a piece of organic cake, courtesy of Green Campus. The cake celebrates the university’s progress in reaching its “sustainability CO2 goals”. But, really, who needs a reason to eat cake?

8. Watch MiGP

Musicology students are putting on their own version of ‘Melodi Grand Prix’ (what the Danes call Eurovision). Now, we’ve got nothing against Israeli chicken songs or poppy Danish Viking odes, but they just don’t hold a candle to MiGP. Bjørnholm, 17.30.

9. Talk to a stranger

Everyone at the university will be there: students, instructors, deputy directors, gardeners, HR people, University Post reporters. So we mean everyone. Once the self-satisfaction that washes over you when you realise just how many people you know begins to fade, go talk to someone you’ve never met before.

10. Innovate!

There are a good number of people out there – here in the newsroom it’s close to 90% – who’ve had truly original ideas while attending a festival only to draw an utter blank the next day about just what their disruptive idea was.

The Spring Festival seeks to do something about that by giving you the chance to work on your idea. Between 14.00 and 18.00 you can hear more about what it’s like to turn your idea into a company. Copenhagen Science City tent.

11. KUiz yourself

Go head-to-head with the university’s other smarty pants. All you need is half a brain and a mobile to take part. Join the University Post in Det Fede Telt at 14.45 for our quiz. And if a battle of the brains isn’t enough for you, maybe we can tempt you with an offer of free beer for first 40 people who sign up. The winner takes it all. And a bottle of bubbly.

12. Enjoy the music

For some, the Spring Festival is all about catching the uni spirit. For others, the music is the reason for the seasonal get-together. Either way, there’s no denying that the Spring Festival has pulled together a respectable music programme.

·        Solema (electro-pop: 2017 winner of the P3 Gold best new act award – Frekvens, 15.15)
·        The Savage Rose (rock legends – Totem, 16.25)
·        Uffe Lorensen (spend an insightful and entertaining 45 minutes with the frontman for Spids Nøgenhat and Baby Woodrose – Frekvens, 18.00)
·        Go-Go Berlin (electro-rock – Frekvens, 20.00)
·        Nelson Can (probably the only Danish garage rock act without a guitarist, but make no mistake, Nelson Can’s show will rock you anyway – Totem, 19.00)
·        Veto (alternative/electronic/modern progressive rock and a whole lot more – Totem, 21.00)
·        Von Dü (Reggae? Ska? Pop? What’s the word we’re looking for? That’s it: madness – Frekvens, 22.15)
·        Benal (electric hip-hop – Totem, 23.15)
·        Graded (DJ, five-time mix national champion – Totem, 00.15)

Our reporter, Nanna Balslev (who spends her nights as a spandex-clad crime fighter – no, wait, that’s someone else we know – when the sun goes down, Nanna becomes DJ Nannalicious) has put together a Sping Festival playlist for you to warm up to.

13. Avoid red eye

The Spring Festival, as its name suggests, is held during pollen season. Remember your antihistamines. Love, Dad.

14. Say tak to the TAP of the year

No university can function without its technical and administrative staff (shortened TAP – because UCPH will shorten anything ASAP). Join us at Totem around 17.55 as we say thanks for their efforts and name the TAP employee of the year.

15. Find your own things to do

If you follow our recommendations to the letter, you’ll have somewhere between 2 and 217 minutes to fill. Use them to listen to Balkan Bstrds (Det Fede Telt, 14.00), dance to the music of the FA Allstars (Bjørnholm, 14.30), meet the good folks of KSI (the university sports association) (the football pitch, from 14.00-18.00), suggest topics for the rap battle between Pelle and Klaskefar (Det Fede Telt, 15.25), experience speaking talents taking part in the Epideitic Encounters competition (Det Fede Telt, 15.40), take part in the PseudoScience Slam and try to spot the fake PhD project (Bjørnholm 18.30), see Sweet Burlesque (Bjørnholm, 22.10), and try all of the other things we’ve forgotten to mention.

16. Be adventurous

About what we just said: make sure you do some things that you didn’t plan on doing. Try peeking into a random tent. You’ll never know what you find. Last year, a few lucky students were offered to empty a keg just before closing time. Just sayin’.

17. Remember your UCPH ID

Entry is free – but you can’t get in if you don’t show your ID.

See you there.

See the full programme. Gates open at 14.00.

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