The second annual Playfair, an event hosted for incoming freshmen, took place Saturday, Aug. 24, at the Stroh Center.

“It’s really trying to get people out of their comfort zones, to meet others [and] have fun,” said Holly Grunn, coordinator of fraternity and sorority life.

The University hired Playfair to come and run the events for freshmen. Playfair Coordinator Emily Andrews travels across the country and is in charge of choosing the icebreakers and games for the freshmen to play.

“[There are] 25 facilitators … we go around the country and visit different campuses in the summer until late fall and do orientation for the new students,” Andrews said.

The icebreakers help students get to know each other and make friends before classes even start, said Jacob Clemens, assistant dean of the Center for Leadership.

Freshmen were put into different groups throughout the night so they would be able to meet as many people as possible.

“Students were put in different groups based on their locations or majors or hobbies and got to know each other better,” Clemens said.

Students were also put into groups based on their birthday.

“My favorite part was when we were separated into groups based on our birth months,” freshman Carly Willis said. “After getting separated into the groups we stayed in that group really for the rest of the night. It was so nice to get to know a small group of people.”

Playfair has other goals than just having new freshmen get to know each other.

“It’s called Playfair because it’s about team-building,” Andrews said. “We do not exclude anyone.”

For people to work on their team building skills, there were some activities where the freshmen had to work together to complete a task.

“We got to dance with our arms linked,” freshman Kelci Overman said. “It was a lot of fun because the height differences between people were really funny.”

Freshman Caleb Nicholas liked the high energy of the event.

“It was really cool to see everyone having a good time,” Nicholas said.

Freshman Anna Williams was surprised with how the event turned out.

“I thought Playfair was going to be more low-key. I thought we would sit in a circle and get to know each other, but all of the activities were a lot of fun,” she said.

Playfair also aims to move people forward and to try new things.

Upperclassmen volunteered to helped set up the event. As well as setting up, the upperclassmen led the icebreaker activities and got the freshmen involved in the event.

“We hope this creates a positive experience for the new students,” Grunn said.