The Fieldhouse Arena filled with witches, zombies and doctors Thursday, and where they weren’t, students were, packing the lower seats and bleachers.

Along with all of this was a whole lot of spirit to the beat of spooky tunes and upbeat dance grooves. This was Grand Valley State University’s homecoming lip sync competition.

Groups of performers shouted in anticipation and an assortment of music played before the stage lights came on.

Host Vince Fabra brought his own version of a lip sync, dancing to N*SYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye.” He said his opening number was simply lowering the bar for student performers.

Residential groups along with many sororities and fraternities participated to make up fifteen performances.

The Sigma Phi AOPi Massacre received third place, Are You Afraid of the Deltas? placed second and They Who Must Not Be Named won first place.

Groups were judged on choreography, lip sync performances, transitions, costumes and props as well as entertainment
value. There were six judges, all of them GVSU graduates.

In addition to these judging areas, performers were also given rules. Performances could not be longer than seven minutes including setup and tear down, and groups that exceeded the time limited were deducted points. Performances also had to be tasteful and leave the stage clean, eliminating glitter, confetti and other messy materials.

One of the judges, Kim Schmidt, is a 1988 and 2000 graduate of GVSU and currently the associate director of alumni relations.

“It was fun to see all the students pull together and compete — the place was packed,” Schmidt said. “The enthusiastic involvement of the student body is infectious and I am so excited to be a part of it.”

Many different themes were presented, such as a Halloween homecoming dance, a haunting of sleeping children, Disney, zombies, the homecoming football game and more.

Songs such as “Disturbia” by Rihanna and “E.T.” by Katy Perry appeared multiple times. Other songs ranged from “Cannibal” by Ke$ha to “Time Warp” from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and even “The Circle of Life” by Elton John. High-pitched screams were also a common audio feature.

Between these homecoming performances, Fabra tied in some humor and introduced homecoming regents to the attendees.

At the end of the night, Fabra responded to tweets while judges tallied their points. When asked which performance
was his favorite, he answered that all groups did a great job.

“You guys brought it,” Fabra said. Many of the students who watched agreed.

“Overall it was a really good time and I had fun,” said freshman Morgan McCarthy.

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