photos by Gracey Evans
Brendan Dazen, junior SAEM major and member of Her Campus, gives Cortnee Deyarmin, freshman SAEM major, tickets to win prizes that were available at the PMStival on Thursday night. 

Last week was the second annual PMStival, which the members of Her Campus put on to celebrate womanhood and the various aspects that come with it.

“The PMStival is all about embracing comfort during ‘that time of the month’ and also celebrating being a woman,” Casey McGaw, future campus coordinator of Her Campus and sophomore sports, arts and entertainment management (SAEM) major, who planned this year’s PMStival, said at the event in the Lawrence Hall Ballroom.

Pizza, ice cream and soda were all supplied by Her Campus to help comfort and welcome attendees of the festival. Activities included nail and jar painting, as well as a raffle, which students could enter by tweeting #HCPMStival on twitter. Some prizes in the raffle included makeup, skin care items, perfume and even Pirates tickets. McGaw said that these items were all chosen because of the comforting nature they advocated.

“We wanted to have a signature event to showcase Her Campus ideals and we love all women–really everyone on campus, so this is meant to be fun and relaxing,” Lexie Mikula, Her Campus Point Park campus coordinator and senior mass communications major, said about the PMStival.

Sophomore history majors Erica Thomas and Lauren Henry enjoy painting mason jars during the PMStival sponsored by Her Campus on Thursday night. This was one of the activities available to do that evening.

The festival, which started at 7 p.m. in Lawrence Hall Ballroom, gained attendance of more than 80 people, more than half of which were women, with several males also in attendance. Mikula said they wanted to push the limits of the taboo nature of the marketing of the event, without it being offensive or exclusive.

“I’ve seen quite a few guys here. Of course men are welcome. It’s completely open to everyone,” Mikula said.

Others believe the marketing appealed to them.

“I heard there was nail painting, and I just want to be with a bunch of other girls and do arts and crafts together,” freshman Erica Alcorta said.

Even the males at the fest recognized the message of comfort present in the atmosphere and activities.

“Pizza and ice cream are definitely comforting, and wherever there is free stuff, I’ll go,” Noah Ondik, freshman animation major, said at the fest.

The food side of the event was such a draw that the ice cream and pizza ran out in about 45 minutes.

“We were not expecting this many people. It’s really exciting to see,” Mikula said.

However, many attendees still stuck around after the food was out to continue painting jars and nails while listening to the junior SAEM major Brendan Dazen’s pop-song playlist. The winner of the raffle was set to be announced at 9:30 p.m., a half hour before the event was scheduled to end.

This was the second year the PMStival took place at Point Park, the first of which was last year. The idea first came from previous Her Campus Point Park Campus Coordinator Haleigh Kopinski. The first took place in the fall of 2014, and McGaw said that it was planned last-minute, while she and Mikula said this year’s event was in planning since last September.

“We had a bigger budget for this year, and the idea was to make it bigger and better, so it would be a good time for everyone,” McGaw said.

Sarah Lukaszewicz, freshman forensic science major, looks at the items that were up for raffle on Friday evening for the PMStival that was held by Her Campus.