Orchestra students held a video game tournament on January 18 to fund-raise for their program this year.

“We chose to play Super Smash Bros. because the new game had just come out,” junior Emma Davis said.

The orchestra took advantage of the students’ love for the game and created a way to make money off of it. The participants were charged $7 to compete in the tournament.

“A lot of orchestra people are big Super Smash Bros. fans and it is a really popular competitive game, so it makes sense to capitalize on its popularity, by holding this tournament,” senior Ivan Perez said.

The orchestra found a new way for fundraising involving the current students in the orchestra program inviting other kids outside of the program to participate in this tournament.

“Most of our other fundraiser ideas were not actual events, unlike how the tournament was an event,” Davis said.

The tournament gave the opportunity for the kids to have a good time with other friends, not just the ones in orchestra.

“The Smash tournament differed from other methods of fundraising because it was fun, creative, and easily accessible to everyone,” Perez said.

Since most students have heard about this game, this fundraiser received a lot of attention.

“We chose Smash Bros. because it was easy to organize a tournament and lots of people have played the game,” Perez said.

Many of the orchestra students were pleased to see their peers enjoying themselves during this fundraiser.

“The tournament went much better than I expected,” Davis said. “There were almost 50 people that came, and we were only expecting 30 to 40.”

The tournament outcome was a pleasant surprise to Davis because they exceeded their fundraising goal.

“We did make the money that we expected to make by selling tickets to both play and watch the tournament,” Davis said.

Students didn’t have to compete to support the organization; there was a $2 fee for the students that just watched the tournament.

“I went to the tournament to watch and help sell tickets and it went really well,” Davis said. “Everyone seemed to be having a really good time.”