Carnegie Mellon Booth 2014: Pirates of the Caribbean
My sophomore year at Carnegie Mellon I received the position of Booth Chair within my sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta. Booth is a CMU tradition where student organizations compete with each other by building a two story themed building in less than a week that is open to the public. The students have 6 days to build on site, three days for the booth to be open, then one day to tear it down.
My responsibilities as one of four Booth Chairs was to be in charge of budget, construction, electrical wiring of the booth, making sure everything was up to code, safety, and collaboration with the head of design to ensure a smooth operation that would lead to a magical experience to all who entered.
The overall theme that year was Best of the Best, and so we chose our booth theme to be Pirates of the Caribbean. It was a two story immersive experience where those who entered were taken on a journey through different scenery and locations from the movies. A story was told as you moved through, you had to find Davy Jones’ heart by playing the theme song on a keyboard, you walked through a pirate ship, an island, and a house, all to end up in a final treasure room that glittered with pirate gold. The exterior of the booth was the famed Black Pearl from the movies, with giant Kraken tentacles surrounding and puncturing the ship.
