COLUMBIA, S.C. — Julianna Tyndall is a senior at the University of South Carolina.
Tyndall heads the homecoming commission this year and has been working with her team since January to put together the schools first ‘Paint the Town Black and Garnett’ event.
She describes it as a mix between a pep rally and a concert.
“We’ll have a bunch of live music, sidewalk sales, a lot of businesses are getting involved.”
Jack Brown’s Beer and Burger Joint, just a few doors down from the main stage. Mazen Cotran II is the assistant manager. He says he’s increasing his staff for the weekend.
“We’re definitely running a few more people than usual. We’re really excited about all the traffic. I mean, even with most of the home games we see our sales sky rocket exponentially, but especially with our amazing fans coming back home to Columbia, we’re excited for them to come.”
Across town, the Benedict Tigers look to extend their undefeated run on Saturday. The school takes advantage of the mass influx of alumni to host a networking event where current students can meet and learn from former students.
Annastacia Hammond graduated in May 2022 and now works at Boeing in St. Louis, Missouri. She traveled back to Columbia for the weekend and was happy to meet and chat with students.
“Events like this bring students aware of what’s going on, not only in the community, but major companies that are sites that are in St. Louis, or Washington, in D.C, in Texas. I’m very thankful.”
Benedict hosts ‘family reunion’ on Oak Street with a DJ and vendors Friday night. On Saturday morning, the school runs a parade down Sumter Street at 10am. Kymm Hunter is Benedict’s Assistant VP of Communications and Marketing.
“We’ll have all kinds of floats, all kinds of bands, locally as well as nationally and we’re excited about that.”
While some businesses, like Jack Brown’s, expect to see an uptick in service, others downtown don’t. Bennie Hudson is a manager at Hotel Trundle. As of Wednesday afternoon, he says the hotel was at 70%, when most game weekends are sold out.
The Gamecock play at 4pm on Saturday and the Benedict Tigers kick off at 2pm.