Weekends at Rowan University consist of two types of huge parties or social gatherings. Earlier in the evening, many local venues hold house shows on campus. Meanwhile, later at night, many fraternities host parties. This article will explain the differences between house shows and fraternity parties and why house shows are better.

House shows usually happen earlier at night, around 6:30 p.m. There are many venues in Glassboro that host house shows, but some of the most prominent ones include The Swamp and The Treehouse. At the house shows, many local South Jersey and Philly bands perform at the house shows. Normally, at house shows, four bands perform throughout the night, but on rare occasions, such as Emo Night, as many as seven bands can perform in a night.

At these events, the people who organize them charge everyone $10 to get in. The goal of these shows is to promote the bands, especially smaller bands around South Jersey, and for people to have a good time. Usually, house shows end when all the bands have performed for the night. 

Fraternity parties happen later at night. Girls usually get in for free, but for guys, they are charged $15 unless they don’t have a 3:1 ratio, in which case they are charged more. This is the requirement for guys to have three girls with them if they want to get in. 

Normally, frat parties start around 11 pm, but on occasion, frats can start at midnight. At these parties, many brothers are in the DJ booth putting on party songs. They also tend to provide alcohol at the party. Usually, for guys, beer is served, and for the girls, jungle juice is served. Some fraternities at Rowan are known to spike girls’ drinks. Usually, frat parties end around 2 a.m., assuming the cops don’t shut down the frat party.

Being a Rowan student for the last two years and having experience going to a fraternity party and house shows, I prefer going to house shows over fraternity parties for a couple of reasons. First of all, it’s easier to meet new people at house shows. When there are breaks between bands due to setting up, there is a little bit of quiet time where you can meet Rowan students. From my experiences, I met so many new people I wouldn’t have met if I didn’t go to house shows. At fraternity parties, it’s harder to meet people since there is constantly loud music from the DJ, and even if you want to have a conversation, the other person won’t even hear you.  

Secondly, house shows have less strict rules than fraternity parties. At fraternity parties, if you are a guy, you have to be with three girls to get in. At some frats, they don’t even let guys in if they don’t have girls with them. Meanwhile, at other fraternities, they will upcharge guys if they don’t have a 3:1 ratio. Even if you have a ratio, you’re not 100% guaranteed to get into a fraternity party since some fraternities are stricter than others. 

Meanwhile, at house shows, the only rules they have are not to be a creep, be respectful, and have a good time. 

Finally, it’s also way different each time compared to a frat party. At frat parties, the same thing always happens. There is a DJ, you get alcohol, you talk to people, rinse and repeat. House shows are generally the same in structure, but the way they’re different each time is that different bands are performing and bring their own style of music. When I was at Saturday’s house show, I interviewed three different bands. Even though they were all emo bands, their music is influenced by different types of emo music. For example, Sailor Boys is a nautical-themed sailor band that makes whatever music they want to, or Cortiella, which is a screamo band, an emo band that screams a lot. This brings a lot of variety to the bands. Sometimes, smaller groups who have only been together for a couple of months are performing so they can create more of a following, but sometimes bigger bands like LVNA, who have been in the house show scene for so long, are also performing.

Overall, as a Rowan student, it’s good to go to both fraternity parties and house shows for the experience. That said, I prefer house shows over fraternity parties since house shows are a lot more fun, have more variety, and fewer rules.

For comments/questions about this story, DM us on Instagram @thewhitatrowan or email [email protected]