The Parade Ground was packed with students, Spring Testers and visitors Friday, as they enjoyed inflatable games, funnel cakes and live music from a variety of bands.
Students on Target, a subcommittee of Student Government, hosted Groovin’ on the Grounds from 1:30 p.m. until late into the night.
The free event began with an early-afternoon festival where different campus organizations sponsored games, competitions, concessions and booths.
After participants were exhausted from all the activities, hundreds stayed to lounge on the grass and listen to a long line of performers.
The Krewe, a local band that won Battle of the Bands last semester, Vapor, Rockin’ Dopsie Jr. and the Zydeco Twisters, Gin Blossoms and Nappy Roots provided participants with hours of entertainment.
Morgan Guillory, an undecided freshman who came to hear all the performances, said she was impressed with Groovin’ and thought it was a good way to show the community and other visitors the University is all about “having fun.”
      “I came to see Rockin’ Dopsie Jr. because he has a guy that plays the accordion,” Guillory said.
The crowd was large throughout all of the performances, but it was not until Rockin’ Dopsie Jr. came on stage that they really came alive. Participants crowded the stage and danced as the singer jumped around wearing a cowboy hat and sunglasses, singing old familiar Zydeco songs.
Guillory’s friend Jessica McCardell, a secondary education sophomore, said she was having a great time and was happy the concert was free.
However, the music was not the event’s only free offer.
Before and during the musical entertainment, participants waited in lines of more than 50 people to get a free funnel cake from a stand sponsored by the Ascension Parish Kiwanas Club. Despite the long wait, most people walked away from the line to enjoy the music with a full stomach and powdered sugar on their faces.
Many students were happy to see the Gin Blossoms finally were able to perform. The band originally was scheduled to perform the week of Homecoming, but the concert was canceled because of an approaching hurricane. The concert was rescheduled late last fall, but it also was canceled.
Halfway through the band’s performance, as he watched students crowdsurf by, the band’s lead singer said they were happy to “finally make it to LSU” and were really enjoying the event.
Despite Groovin’s slogan, “a good time not wasted,” several students spotted people in the crowd holding beer cans or other alcoholic beverages.
“Anything that LSU does, there will be drunk people there,” said Scott Schefferstein, a business freshman. “But since the focus of Groovin’ is to not have alcohol, I think it keeps the drunks in the minority.”
Guillory said she was not surprised because “to enjoy the first two bands, you needed to be drunk.”
The presence of alcohol did not ruin the fun for the large crowd, though.
“I came because I was tired of doing the same stuff on Friday nights, and this is a good change,” Schefferstein said.
Schefferstein and friends Ryan Coulon, a pre-med sophomore, and Paul Loria, a construction management sophomore, said they were most excited about Nappy Roots’ performance.
Coulon said he was impressed by the entire event and the effort Students on Target put into it.
“They actually got pretty good bands,” Coulon said. “It’s definitely worth the money they put into it.”