On Oct. 12, the University of Connecticut’s Moon Appreciation Club made an announcement on their Instagram page notifying members that the club was going on an indefinite hiatus as they revamp the club, following restrictions imposed by UConn Student Union and Event Services.
The club is known for hosting monthly meetings during the full moon on the Great Lawn that generally consist of a two-band concert. According to their announcement, the restrictions causing the hiatus are a result of “excessive smoking, drinking and other behaviors” at their most recent meeting.
Event Services is requiring the club to pay $1,200 to host events that would include live music and $400 for events without any bands. This money would be used to try to control the behavior, including hiring security and setting up barricades. Given these costs, the Moon Club executive board decided “the best option for us is to go on hiatus until we can get things sorted,” according to their announcement.
The president and secretary of Moon Club, fifth-semester animal science major Angelina Lyras and fifth-semester speech, language and hearing science major Joseph Kosover, spoke about the hiatus in an interview with the Daily Campus. Lyras and Kosover talked more about why Event Services imposed these restrictions.
“Unfortunately, everything is a liability,” said Kosover. “Anything that happens within Moon Club reflects on us as the e-board legally and then that reflects on UConn, so things like moshing, which we all enjoy at meetings, isn’t okay because it’s a liability and, like… what if someone gets hurt? Drinking, smoking, climbing trees, all that stuff becomes a liability.”
Lyras talked about how they were aware of these issues, but didn’t think it was violating UConn rules.
“We knew people were doing it, we knew it was happening, however we did not think it was that crazy,” said Lyras. “We thought as long as it’s between the guidelines that union gave us, which are it has to be a certain amount of feet between the buildings and the event, we didn’t think it’d be that big of an issue. However, it became a lot more of an issue once [Event Services] reached out and was like, ‘Hey, this is just straight up not allowed.’”
Lyras talked about the restrictions that were imposed upon their meetings and the effects on the club.
“What they told us about future meetings… [was] if you guys want to have this type of meeting, if you’re going to have the two-concert meeting on the Great Lawn, you’d have to pay for security, wrist bands, barricades, all things like that just so that the Union would be okay with being able to regulate the things that were happening at those meetings,” said Lyras. “[This is] totally fine, except it’s a big cost, so moving forward with meetings, if we were to have meetings like that, it would be quite a big cost.”
Lyras and Kosover said the club will be getting a “full revamp this year” to comply with the Event Services restrictions.
“We’re still working on [the revamp], we’re still getting information from our members [about] what would they like,” said Lyras. “We’re getting a lot of info from all our members and people outside of the club and thinking what would people be interested in doing before we start making hard set plans.”
Kosover talked about other events on campus that students can engage with while Moon Club is on hiatus.
“In the meantime, SUBOG has been trying to put on a lot more musical events,” said Kosover. “There’s one that’s coming up soon in November, they just put one on for Sunset Fest. The effort to try to bring in what we tried to bring in, with music and exposing it to new audiences, that’s definitely appreciated, so [Moon Club’s hiatus is] not an end either.”
Although Moon Club is on “concert-hiatus,” Lyras is still making sure that Moon Club stays active.
“[The hiatus] doesn’t mean we’re not still active as a club,” said Lyras. “We’re still active on our Instagram page, we’re still active around campus, we’re still posting stuff. It’s a full moon tonight, so I’m sure we’re going to get a lot of stuff for that. Honestly, it’s just a matter of keeping the spirit of the moon alive and keep doing your thing. The only thing that’s really stopped us is we’re not meeting for now while we sit and we try to figure things out properly.”
For anyone interested in the Moon Appreciation Club, more information can be found on their Instagram, @uconnmoonclub, or on their UConntact page.
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