The Grand Valley State University Laker Traditions team has announced the 2015 homecoming theme: “Once Upon a Laker.” This year’s fantasy-filled event will take place from Oct. 18 through Oct. 24.

Sean O’Melia, student senate vice president for campus affairs, said the theme came out of a large, campus-wide meeting. He said it was important to involve every department, from housing and athletics to the Laker Traditions team. This way, the team would represent what every department wanted to get out of homecoming.

Deciding on one specific theme to represent the entirety of the university throughout homecoming was not an easy task. O’Melia said this year’s process was both fun and efficient, so the homecoming team will probably use something similar next year.

“We decided to just get one group meeting,” O’Melia said. “Just get all of our campus partners in one meeting, and it took us only about an hour or so.”

Some of the scrapped ideas included a “Back to the Future” theme, since 2015 is the year Marty McFly and Doc Brown visited in the second film. O’Melia said another idea was a more traditional GVSU and Laker theme, but that also did not make the cut.

“Once Upon a Laker” is a purposely vague theme, said Caitlin Perlotto, homecoming co-coordinator. Any group and member involved with homecoming can take the theme in the direction they want.

“[The theme] encompasses anything from Disney, Game of Thrones, fantasy, fairy tales,” Perlotto said. “Anything like that is considered ‘Once Upon a Laker.’”

Most of the organizational parts of planning homecoming have already been taken care of, Perlotto said. The team is currently focusing on completing the scavenger hunt. Assembling all the items that participants will need through homecoming can also take some time. She is also looking for judges for the various competitions that will take place throughout homecoming week.

Both O’Melia and Perlotto said it is important for students to get involved with homecoming. Perlotto emphasized the unique social environment that homecoming presents to students.

“It’s great way to get to know a lot of people on campus, not only in your living center,” Perlotto said. “There’ll be Greeks, there’ll be housing, there’ll be student organizations there, and it’s great to get to know people that you may not necessarily see every day in your classes.”

Since there are so many different groups and organizations involved with homecoming, Perlotto said it can be difficult to bring them all together. She said helping everyone cooperate into one smooth event is the most difficult thing to accomplish.

“We have to go through lots of different processes to do certain events,” Perlotto said, “Through buildings, through departments, through donations and everything like that.”

While the homecoming process can be tiring and complicated, O’Melia said it is extremely rewarding. He admits it is difficult to help every organization get on the same page, but that task can help create special bonds.

“I’m sure there are some people who may not have connected until they got in their lip-sync team and practiced for hours and hours,” O’Melia said. “I think those memories are the best things to see out of people.”

Perlotto said it is great to see so many different people come together to demonstrate their passion for GVSU. While there is a competition aspect to homecoming, she said the event is really about showing love for the university.