Events Services and Spotlight Productions at Grand Valley State University are collaborating to host a silent disco Friday, Sept. 8.

GVSU students are invited to attend the headphone rave, which will be held on the North Lawn of the Kirkhof Center from 9 p.m. until midnight. Three stages will be set up, and a company called Silent Events will set up light fixtures and a smoke machine and distribute headphones. 

“The company is bringing enough headphones for everybody,” said Alyssa Jones, director of Spotlight Productions. “The only thing students need to do to retrieve them is bring along their student IDs to trade as collateral.” 

Event Services and Spotlight Productions are collaborating to bring three local DJs to the dance, two of whom are GVSU graduates. Students can choose whichever DJ stage they’d like to tune in to, denoted by three colors, throughout the night. 

“I would compare it to going to a concert or a live event that you can tune out of,” Jones said. “Electric Forest has been picking it up, too. Silent discos are getting really big.” 

More than 800 students are projected to attend the welcome back event, including both returning students and incoming freshmen. 

The three DJs, DJ Kung, DJ B-wiz and DJ Composition/2 Bright Guys, are now working as musicians in the Grand Rapids area. DJ Composition has his own radio station out of Kent County. 

The dance is open to all students and will be held between the Mary Idema Pew Library Learning and Information Commons and the Cook Carillon Tower.

Wanting to keep the GVSU student body involved and engaged, Event Services has already begun marketing other events for students.

“We gave away 100 tickets this week for the White Caps playoff games, which also included free soda and hot dogs,” said Ryan Neloms, assistant director of Event Services. “There will be free water and soda at the event with a dining dollars raffle. Social events like these help students stay involved on campus.”

The advertising for the silent disco is prominent across campus. Lawn signs, flyers, whiteboards and a banner in the Kirkhof Center are all methods being used to reach the eyes of students. Event Services and Spotlight Productions, out of the Office of Student Life, made a collaborative effort to garnish the highest attendance possible. 

“We wanted to work with Event Services on something completely different, and so we decided to give this a try,” Jones said. “We both did our own programming, but this event will help both of us to shine a little brighter off of each other in the setup for the dance, as it takes a lot of manpower and is beneficial to all parties involved for the turnout.”

For more information, visit www.gvsu.edu/events/silent-disco/.