Grab your bingo cards and chips, head on down to the Lawrence Hall ballroom, and get ready  for a night full of competitiveness, fun prizes, and a lively atmosphere. On the third Thursday of  every month, Point Park’s Campus Activities Board hosts a bingo night, typically referred to as “Late Night Bingo.” Each competition has a different theme and the stakes are high. The next bingo night will be hosted on October 20th, and is fittingly themed “Haunted Bingo.” From vacuum cleaners, gift cards, stuffed animals, and so much more these freebies are worth a lot to broke college students. 

While these bingo nights are fun for the students attending, there are weeks of hard work  that go behind pulling these events together. Madelyn Kennedy, the Pioneer Series Coordinator,  broke down the process of planning a bingo event and all of the hoops CAB must jump through  in order to host a seemingly simple event.  

 “We must submit our events, which include almost every detail, two months ahead,” Kennedy said. “Next, we submit our marketing forms,what people see on PointSync, and print out and post the flyers and hot cards around campus leading up to the event.” 

It’s not just about promotion though, they also need to speak to their sponsors and the  school to get money for these events. 

“We also have to contact anyone helping the event, for example, vendors, media, other campus organizations, et cetera,” Kennedy said. “Then, we submit our purchase request form to  the school, which includes everything that needs to be purchased for the event. Finally, we do an  event brief which is presented at our executive board meetings so that everyone is on the same  page.”

Bingo is sponsored by Student Life and has become a big part of the Point Park  community since its start. 

This is not a bingo game for your grandparents; this is a super competitive atmosphere  with high stakes. “No matter the size of the crowd you have to  give energy to create the atmosphere you are looking for,” Joey Bova, bingo host, said.” People get into the game more if you bring the energy, so I’d say the atmosphere gets electric as the game goes on, and as the year continues.”  

There is nothing quite like monthly bingo that the campus offers. Bova  mentioned the community bingo has built within the school.

“I think the difference between bingo and other CAB events has to be how it feels like a community,” Bova said. Over the year you see people come back for the next bingo, but you start to notice people who came to the first bingo bring friends to the next one, and then more people with those friends. It’s really cool to be on the other side of things and notice how students come out to events like bingo and make friends like we did in our freshman year.” 

Due to the competitive nature, rules have to be set into place to ensure the competition is  fair. 

“We keep it fair for everyone by having CAB members check the cards before you can claim the prize,” Bova said. “We also don’t allow CAB members to participate in the game. Finally for prize selection we have a basket of random numbers that winners draw from that correlates to  a different prize.”

Everyone has one card and CAB uses a random bingo card pattern generator as  well as a ball dispenser to ensure every round is different and never too easy. However, as the  night goes on, CAB does offer one shortcut to players. During the intermission break, they allow players to get an additional bingo card if they follow CAB on social media and show proof to the CAB members working the event. 

There is plenty to look forward to as the year goes on and the bingo events continue. The  closest competition is October 20 for “Haunted Bingo.” The month after will be Vine Bingo,  hosted on November 17, where the most quotable vines will be read off as opposed to bingo  numbers. To end the semester, the last bingo will be “Mystery Box Bingo” where all of the prizes will be wrapped up like presents to surprise bingo winners. A date has not yet been released for Mystery Box Bingo.

The future is bright for CAB bingo fans and Kennedy is hopeful that bingo will continue  to grow. Kennedy says, “My hope for the future of bingo is that people continue to be excited  about our monthly bingo. I also hope that our prizes can get more significant and more exciting. I  love the atmosphere of bingo nights, so I hope it continues to stay that way. My final hope for  bingo is that we continue to have more crowd participation in helping keep everyone involved.  Ultimately, I want to see bingo continue to grow throughout the year.” 

Haunted Bingo will be held on October 20.