By Ronny O’LearyColumnist

With the commencement of the fall semester comes the approach of the Fall Festival. I very much enjoy this exciting weekend, in part due to my favorite event, the Hofstra’s Got Talent competition. The show grants students the opportunity to show off their most excellent abilities and features a wide variety of performers, including singers, poets, instrumentalists and beat boxers. Sadly, the show is not being held this year due to lack of interest.

I first heard the bad news last semester from Brendan Caputo, who formerly worked at the Office of Student Leadership and Activities. He said that, unfortunately, the talent show is just not worth the effort anymore. “When you only have eight freshmen competing in a show, and they all sing Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep,’ you know that the tradition is dead,” said Caputo.

I share his disappointment. I competed in the talent show the last three years, and I loved every moment of it. As an audience member, I loved witnessing Hofstra students demonstrate their most prized abilities. As a participant, I was honored to have competed against such talented students.

The talent show was an easy way for students to display their skills to the Hofstra community. A student did not need to join any performance groups or major in any particular field in order to compete. For example, a musician should not need to become a music major in order to make his or her talent known to the community. I am not a music major, but I still love playing the piano and singing as a hobby. The talent show allowed me to display my talent without having to join a singing group, which would have taken time out of my busy schedule. Students should be able to showcase their abilities no matter their circumstance. The cancelation of Hofstra’s Got Talent removes an important opportunity for this to occur.

The Fall Festival is sure to be a wonderful weekend as usual, but it will definitely be missing one of its strongest assets without Hofstra’s Got Talent. We must not allow this venerable tradition to be dead forever; it is a golden opportunity for students to demonstrate their skills and to witness the best that Hofstra has to offer in terms of talent. We must display our interest in this event and promote it to incoming students as much as possible in order to vouch for its return in years to come.