More than 1,600 people showed up at Helaman Field for free food, live music, games and a petting zoo at BYUSA's spring fair Friday night.

Four different local bands each took a turn on the stage during what BYUSA executive vice president Chance Basinger called the event's "concert series." Featured bands included Forgotten Charity, Broken Hearted Rounds, Shark Speed, and event-headliner, Allred.

"We were especially excited to have John Allred come," Basinger said. "We paid quite a bit to get him to come."

Allred, who has recently played with big-name artists Jimmy Eat World, Ben Folds and Secondhand Serenade, said he was ecstatic when he was invited to play the event.

"I've been trying to play this school forever," Allred said. "I'll come back anytime they ask me."

Aside from the music, participants at the event competed in a number of different contests ranging from a four-legged race to a most bizarre body oddity contest. Participants also competed for the title of "Best Cougar Roar."

The student who won the body oddity contest did so by bringing her feet over the top of her head and touching them to her nose.

Winning entries to the best pick-up line contest included, "Is your name Ariel? Because I'd like to make you a part of my world," submitted by Zach Capre, and "If I was Peter Pan, you'd be my happy thought," submitted by Shelly Hansen.

The BYU Chess Club sponsored a booth offering five-dollar gift certificates to the Cougareat for anyone who could beat the clubs vice president Michael Munafo at chess. Though no one actually beat Munafo, even while he was playing two games at once, he said they still gave away the gift certificates.

One game that drew a particularly large crowd was the dunking booth, which was manned by volunteers from the crowd.

Devin DeVore, a junior from La Cañata, Calif., didn't know he'd be one of the booth's soggy victims when he arrived at the event.

"We made a bet that if my friend did it, I would have to do it too, fully clothed," DeVore said.

BYUSA was particularly pleased by the larger-than-expected turnout.

"It was really good," Basinger said. "Generally this type of event has about 1,000 people, so we wanted to get one and a half times that.

Basinger said he believes turnout exceeded BYUSA's expectations because of the petting zoo, provided by Wild Things, which attracted a large number of married students with children, a demographic that generally doesn't show up to BYUSA events.

"We were really excited to have married students bring their families," Basinger said.

Wild Things also gave a presentation of the exotic animals they brought to kick off the event. Among the most popular animals were lizards, African hedgehogs and a five-foot boa constrictor named Slytherin. "This is a really original idea," said Hayley Mattson, a senior who volunteered at the event. "I've never seen anything like this done at BYU."



Copyright Brigham Young University 16 Jun 2008