Cotton candy, free ice cream, a strongman contest. Was this the county fair? No, it's Slope Day 2007.

On the crisp sunny day, Ho Plaza was hopping with carnival amusements May 4 as Slope Day kicked off. Games have been a feature of Slope Day for several years, but this year, under a warm sun with a cool breeze, students seemed to find them particularly riotous. And as about 15,000 students gathered to cheer and wave at the concert featuring three bands, including the headliner, rapper T.I., they exhibited a curious sense of order and sobriety.

In one game, Monopoly money blew around the inside of a phone booth as the student inside pinned the "$100 bills" against the windows in an attempt to snag at least 20 bills to win a raffle ticket. Grand prizes, to be drawn later in the day, included a Sony Cybershot camera and a PlayStation 2, with the game Guitar Hero thrown in.

Nearby at the strongman competition, men and a few women stood in line to whack a platform with a large mallet in an effort to send a puck up a pole to ring the bell at the top. Chris Romeo '10, who had no trouble ringing the bell and claiming a few raffle tickets, admitted that his summers working demolition and swinging a sledgehammer came in handy. It was all about technique, he said.

"When lifting you try and minimize the angular momentum of the mallet," he said. "So, when you swing it down, you bring your hands together." The guys who swung their mallets from the side rarely rang the bell.

At the Pitch Burst game tent, a girl sat in a chair with a large water balloon suspended in a metal basket above her head, while her friend whipped rubber balls at a red-and-white bull's-eye. When the friend hit the bull's-eye, a pin swung out and popped the balloon. Bingo! Melissa Restifow '08 was soaked.

Her reaction to getting doused? "Pretty awesome, actually," she said. "I'm cool, and I'm wet."

Down at the bottom of Libe Slope, opening band Catch 22 was warming up. As of 1:30 p.m., there were no lines at the long row of portable toilets or at the beer tent. Two emergency medical technicians relaxed in the sunshine, leaning against a modified golf cart, complete with red flashing light and built-in stretcher.

Soon, Catch 22's ska-tinged opening chords rang out, and as if called by the pied piper, a steady flow of students began streaming down the hill, and Slope Day was on.

President David Skorton was nowhere in sight. He was not expected onstage to play sax with the band or dance with students. He had to miss his first Slope Day due to business out of town.