Top 10 Reasons Why Arts Fest Is The Best Weekend Of The Summer

*This is a sticky post, and will remain at the top of our home page throughout the weekend.

Honorable Mention: The Meridian can’t ban parties anymore (questionable whether or not that’s actually true), people with apartments are cool for the weekend, people are tan now (and therefore add at least a solid +1 to their 1-10 rating),

10. Summer Internships suck – I don’t care if you’re making $40/hour as an i-banking intern-bitch hybrid or working for free because “it’s great experience”, internships are ass.  Nothing makes you feel shittier about your life than being at the bottom of the totem pole and when you’re an intern, you’re the bottom and there’s nothing you can do about it.  Arts fest is a great weekend to go out, get absolutely shit housed in the middle of the afternoon, and remember what it’s like to be at school again.  Only another month and a half until we’re all living the dream again.  Now go get me a coffee, junior.

9. State College Bar Prices - Remember how pissed off you were when you got your first bar tab this summer?  “How the FUCK did I spend $100… I only had 4 drinks”.  Yeah, NYC and Philly suck as far as bar prices go (especially NYC… if you’re not making at least $15-20/hour, you might as well just not go out because you won’t be able to pay the light bill if you do).  We don’t realize how spoiled we are with our $2 specials at any bar, any night of the week in State College.  Time to spoil yourselves again, Penn State.  Guys – if you’re kind of a douche and don’t buy a single drink for anyone all weekend, you can easily make it out spending less than $50.  Easy.  Girls – good chance you won’t have to spend a dime if you’re looking good.

8. New Freshman - This post is obviously geared more toward the dudes (but girls, if you like young guys, then whatever works for you is cool too I guess).  Arts fest is the perfect opportunity to scope out the new talent for the fall semester.  Just make sure she’s 18, guys.  That’s not even meant to be a joke.  Seriously.  Make sure she’s 18.  You don’t want to be listening to Akon’s “Sorry, Blame It On Me” all the way home from State College.

7. The Arts that you will inevitably never see (at least not when you’re sober) - The thing about arts fest is that if you’re legitimately going there for the arts, you probably won’t leave disappointed.  Granted, this was never the reason why I went/continue to go to arts fest, but some people like it.  Also enjoyable: drunk haggling with street venders.  Who knows?  Maybe you’ll end up with a giant wooden figurine of a lion that you’ll have no idea where it came from (seriously happened last year).  Honorable mention: the giant sand sculpture on Fraser Street is something to behold and takes about as much will power as you can summon in order to keep yourself from running through it.

6. The drive back to The Valley on Wednesday/Thursday/Friday night – The only time that you will get a feeling that rivals the one you get when you drive back into State College in late August ready to dominate another semester is the one you’ll get when driving back for Arts Fest.  I don’t care if you’re an Arts Fest vet and come into town on Wednesday night or a 9-5 (2 on summer Fridays) worker like myself coming in on Friday.  You’re going to put your windows down, you’re going to play your go-to summer song, and you’re going to get yourself into the mindset to have the time of your life.

5. The morning-after breakfast - State College is hungover breakfast heaven.  Waffle Shop and Irving’s are options for those who want to spend a little time and reminisce about the night before while McLanahan’s is the go-to for those who want something quick that will stop them from dry-heaving and get them ready to do more 10 AM wake up shots.  Either way, you really can’t go wrong.

4. Chipotle within walking distance again – I legitimately thought about putting this as #1 because it’s that big of a deal to me.  You never realize how heavily you depend on Chipotle to knock out so many food groups until summer comes around and the closest one is 8 miles away.  If you live in the city and you’re still within walking distance, than I’m jealous of your life and I hate you.  For the rest of us, drunken Chipotle will be yet another reminder that good times are on the way and that afternoon drunchies can yet again consist of something other than WaWa quesadillas.

3. Getting the band back together – There’s a reason why you’ll always have your college friends.  When you spend that much time with a group of people, you’re bound to get to know and like at least a few of them.  Unfortunately, summer break means that you won’t be seeing all of your buddies every waking minute of the day like you do during the school year.  But not during arts fest.  Arts fest is the time to reconnect and have the standard who-can-raise-their-voice-higher-and-tell-a-story-from-their-summer-so-far conversation.  Everyone has that conversation.  Everyone thinks their summer has been “way more fuckin’ wild” than all of your buddies’.  But now you’re all back together sharing drinks and stories… just the way it should be.

2. Laying groundwork for next semester’s hook ups – Time to rekindle old flames, scroll through contacts lists for new booty calls, and search your phone for contacts with “slut” at the end of their name from when you met them at the bar that one time.  Arts fest can make or break you for an entire semester.  If you play your cards right during arts fest, you can linger in a girl’s head and get her ready to jump your bones when August comes around.  If you choke it though, you could blow your chance with someone before the fall semester even starts.  Be smart out there, everyone.  

1. Because Penn State is Penn State and there has never been nor will there ever be anything like it…ever – Plain and simple.  We go to the best academic institution in the history of the planet.  The amount of fun we have, respect we receive in the workplace post-college, and support we have from alumni is unparalleled.  Not to mention, we have a FUCK TON of fun.  Arts Fest just reminds us of all of these things again.

Enjoy yourselves, Penn State  Be safe.  And remember, Arts Fest is just the appetizer for main course that is the fall semester.  But it’s one hell of an appetizer.