Welcome Back BBQ resulted in a $10,000 loss for the AMS, but President Christian ‘CK’ Kyle said the event was an “investment.”
Last year, the AMS shifted its Welcome Back BBQ programming from a concert to a carnival and BBQ to “save money for students and the organization,” according to then-AMS President Esmé Decker.
Decker said AMS Firstweek 2023 was less “revenue-based” to decrease expenditures for the student society, which had projected a $738,000 deficit. The AMS finished the 2023/24 year with a $557,000 deficit, and is projecting around a $47,000 surplus for 2024/25.
CK said the AMS initially projected a $30,000 loss on the 2024 Welcome Back BBQ since the event was free for students. Despite the actual loss of $10,000, CK said the changes to Welcome Back BBQ created free and accessible programming including free food and live music.
CK also said Welcome Back BBQ has changed to better include first-year students.
“The biggest mindset was to [make] Welcome Back BBQ an orientation event, and the vast majority of people we're trying to do orientation for on campus, when you look at undergraduate students, are under the legal drinking age,” said CK.
“We've tried an underage area at the back of the [Welcome Back BBQ] concert, but we found that was just not exciting for people,” said CK.
Moving forward, CK said the AMS hopes to get more involved with first-year orientation at UBC, and he hopes that campus groups which oversee events such as AMS Firstweek, Homecoming and Imagine Day can work as one unit to bolster campus community.
At the September 25 AMS Council meeting, CK said he is meeting with student union executives whose universities have “high quality orientation programming” to learn how the AMS can better host events that “make sense” for the society.
“If people want to go to an event, there are so many event organizations that throw more intimate events, so we're trying to focus on throwing events that make sense for [us as] a large organization," said CK.
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