On April 25, this year’s Ovation Day of Excellence, as in past years, attendants can expect plenty of free food as part of the day’s festivities.

Food provided by Boca Loca and Dining Services will be available from 12-3 p.m. in Lyceum Square on Seminary Street next to the Conservatory of Music.

All food will be completely free for students. In order to get food, students will only need to acquire a meal ticket.

In the lobby of Boesel Musical Arts Center, students will be able to swipe their Jacket Express cards to receive one. Faculty, staff and visitors will be able to sign in at the lobby receive their tickets.

For the second year in a row, BW’s Dining Services will have the American Grill tent at Day of Excellence, said Jeannie Vassanelli, the Catering Manager of Dining Services.

“This is a wonderful experience to get items fresh from the grill including char-grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, and homemade potato chips,” she said.

The American Grill will also offer vegetarian and vegan burgers by request. For dessert, ice cream will be provided.

“We do root beer floats, orange floats, and ice cream sundaes,” said Vassanelli. “We bring the orange float in there because the color of Ovation is orange, so you’ll see kisses of orange all around campus that day.”

Unlike last year’s Day of Excellence, no food tickets will be needed for ice cream.

In addition to the food offered outside of the Conservatory, there will be free snacks and drinks provided for students on each floor of Bossel Music Hall.

“As you’re walking through the posters, there are snacks and drinks available [including] fruit and granola [and] pretzels,” said Lynn Hulthen, Academic Affairs Project Coordinator.

Dining Services will also provide food in Marting Hall. In Marting’s Treuhaft Lounge will be a coffee house sponsored by the Office of Annual Giving which will serve “iced coffee, hot coffee, orange citrus water, orange blossom bread, biscotti, little muffins [and] all types of goodies that go perfect with coffee,” said Vassanelli.

Early preparations by Dining Services have already begun for Day of Excellence, said Vassanelli.

“Our pre-planning… started back in January,” she said. A week before Ovation, “a busy day in dining services and catering could look like everything from packing lists to pull sheets to organizing all of the items onto carts and speed racks.”

The assembly team starts “staging all [the equipment] in a very organized way—indicating what vehicle those items are going out,” said Vassanelli. “We’ll be using our two trucks, one service van… and our golf cart.”

Another change to this year’s Day of Excellence is the “grouping [of] the presenters into three different groups with no breaks,” said Hulthen. Presenters will be assigned one of three times to present their poster as opposed to last year with two groups with a half hour break.

“The half-hour break is when all the presenters went out to get their food, and that’s when the lines got so long,” said Hulthen. “We’re just hoping that moving the presenters the way that we are will help alleviate those lines a bit.”

Another concern from last year was with the seating for dining. This time, more picnic tables will be accessible in the grass area to the right of Bossel Music Hall.

“We’re just trying to make it easier for [students] to not have to wait for a ticket for ice cream and wait for a ticket for the foods,” said Hulthen.