Sip n’ Slide recap

The biggest, most fun, activity-
packed event TU’s ever hosted.

The University of Tulsa has had many
fun and exciting events since the school
year began. The After Glow party, Activi-
ties Fair, Waka Flocka Flame concert and
more have all taken place in just over two
weeks. But this past Friday brought argu-
ably the longest, most event-packed and
greatest way to send off this year’s summer
season: The TU Sip ‘n Slide.
The Sip ‘n Slide is typically a 21 and
over only event held in downtown Tulsa
each summer. But this time TU got to hold
a Sip ‘n Slide party in the McFarlin Li-
brary parking lot, making it the first time
the event has ever come to TU and the first
time anyone under 21 has partaken in the
Sip ‘n Slide pool party. The whole function
lasted from 4 p.m. to 12 a.m. — a whop-
ping eight hours. Of course, at 4 p.m. the
area was virtually empty, with more stu-
dents coming to join the fun as the sun low-
ered in the sky. I may have been the only
one who stayed for all eight hours of the
event. To say the event was packed later in
the night is an understatement, factoring in
that each TU student was allowed to bring
up to 10 guests each.
The TU Sip ‘n Slide included four giant
pools for people to swim in. Each one had
a couple beach balls and one had a giant
flamingo floaty. There were also three diff-
ferent water slides at the Sip ‘n Slide. The
first was a blue spiral slide, the shortest out
of the three, and my personal favorite. The
second was a gray log-themed water slide
that two people could race on. It wasn’t
the tallest but it was definitely the rough-
est. The last one was darker blue, with a
giant tsunami wave at the top, and the tall-
est of all of the water slides measuring 45-
feet high. Surprisingly, this one was not as
rough as the gray water slide.
Students were given a ticket for one free
meal of their choice, with several food
trucks to choose from: Bondi Bowls, sell-
ing acai & pitaya bowls and snow sones;
Josh’s Sno Cones Truck; Masa, selling
empanadas and Cubanos; a candy truck
selling ice cream and sweets; a Cajun
food truck selling jambalaya, shrimp boil
and catfish baskets; and lastly Alpha Grill,
serving BBQ sandwiches, tacos, nachos,
burritos and more. If students were 21 or
older, they were also given two tickets for
alcoholic drinks of their choice.
A lineup of four DJs including DJ ISIS,
DJ Johnnie Bananas, DJ Oreo and DJ Rog-
Mahal were playing music from the stage
throughout the event while bubble foam
was unleashed on the dancing crowd be-
low. Admittedly the music selections for
the night were not the greatest, and confus-
ingly unexpected at times (because why was one of the DJs playing B-I-N-G-O, the
theme song from “Bill Nye The Science
Guy” and “The Circle of Life” from “The
Lion King?”) but that didn’t seem to stop
the crowd from having fun. Every now and
then, the DJ would play a really good song,
like “London Bridge” by Fergie, “Levitat-
ing” by Dua Lipa or “Don’t Stop The Mu-
sic” by Rihanna. (I’m shamelessly plugging
in the suggestion that yours truly should be
the DJ at the next TU-sanctioned gather-
ing.) During the day, several activities and
games took place like water balloon toss,
musical chairs and tug of war with prizes
such as gift cards to Subway, Chick-fil-A
and Taco Bell as well as giant lip-shaped
and watermelon-shaped pool floats.
The only negative aspect of the night was
roughhousing that got serious very quickly.
In one of the pools, some malefactors at-
tempted to flip over the giant flamingo pool
float to tip everyone off. However, this sent
one of the riders of the flamingo into an
asthma attack followed by a panic attack
causing first responders to get involved.
Luckily no one had to go to the hospital
and normal activities resumed shortly after.
Otherwise, several attendees had nothing
but positive things to say about the event.
Eric Schnelker, the Social Chair of the
Sigma Nu Fraternity noted, “In all six
years I’ve been at TU, this is the most well
thought-out and fun event I’ve been to.”
Zoha Ahmed stated the event was, “a
genius way to beat the heat and also have
fun! The waterslides were so worth it.” She
ranked the event as the second best event
of the year so far, behind the pool parties
with other foreign exchange students just
before freshman orientation began.
Chloe Johnsen, a member of TU’s Ca-
pella Chamber Singers, said the Sip-N-
Slide was, “really fun, well planned, and
well executed.”
With two weeks down and 14 more
weeks to go, it’s going to be hard for TU to
top this epic end-of-the-summer pool party.
I definitely had a lot of fun being with so
many friends; I was full of energy for the
whole eight hours and I look forward to the
next school wide event that TU will have to offer.

Post Author: Michael Tran