On Saturday, Sept. 3, USF St. Petersburg students were treated to a viewing party of USF’s triumph over Notre Dame in the Crystal Head Lounge at Jannus Live. A few days later, students watched a Red Bull Wake/Skim Winch Demo behind USFSP. St. Pete SociaBulls, a group independent of USF that caters to USF students, presented the events.
“I started up SociaBulls in January just to get things going for USFSP students who don’t have anybody out there giving them anything that’s going on at one time,” said founder Austin Piazza. “You have promoters saying ‘come to this’ or ‘come to that,’ but no one is saying that you have all these different things going on that USF students can go to.”
Piazza said he created the events so everyone could participate and have a good time.
Word of mouth and social networking propelled St. Pete SociaBulls to over 2,200 friends on its Facebook page.
“St. Pete SociaBulls were really active over the summer,” said Danny McDonald, senior journalism and media studies major. “They’re not affiliated with the campus. They are independent, but they are USF students. They put on all their events through sponsors, not through A&S fees. Every time they post events, everybody goes to it.”
Piazza said the advantage of autonomy from USF is they get to be “rebellious.”
“We do things the school can’t really do with their limitations and their rules, but that means the school can come to us and say ‘this is what we want’ and ‘can you guys make it happen?,’” Piazza said.
The event planning falls mostly on the program’s founder.
“It’s mainly myself,” Piazza said. “I have a couple of security guards and a couple of guys who help me here and there.”
Setting up the event in nearby Jannus Live provided a convenient venue for USFSP students to attend within a five-block walking distance from the university.
“We want to work with USF as much as possible,” said Jannus Live’s Adam Simon, a USFSP alumnus. “It’s really an outreach to the community. This watch party is the first of its kind. I was working with Austin for two months to set this up and it kind of worked out.”
SociaBulls plans events two to three months in advance with funding from sponsorships.
“It takes time to make it where it can be free or cheap for the students,” Piazza said. “We work with Jannus to try to get free concert tickets, the bars we try to get free cover.”
Piazza also talks with students and other schools to see what they are planning. He considers USFSP’s downtown location ideal for a variety of venues but believes the school has not taken advantage of that. He believes he can help.
“When I brought my ideas, they were very receptive and I haven’t had a problem with them,” Piazza said.
“It’s starting to show in these events that there is more life in St. Petersburg. If you look into the welcome week at Tampa campus, it’s like eight weeks of events. Ours is only one and a half,” McDonald said. “Since Harborside can’t put on all the events that they want, it’s good to see that there are other students who want to put out events for USF St. Pete students. They also reach out to the 21 and up students, getting them to come out to bars and stuff like that. St. Pete has an awesome nightlife and we have to take advantage of that.”
Photo by Tom Chang
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