In the wee hours of Saturday morning, the Yale Symphony Orchestra played its annual Halloween show.
Tickets for the show, an annual Yale tradition, sold out within minutes of their release on Oct. 13. Woolsey Hall, which can seat up to 2,650 people, was packed full of students dressed in Halloween costumes.
“The YSO are all really amazing musicians, and it’s very fun to work with them,” Tommaso Bailo ’27, the Halloween show conductor, said. “There’s a lot of work that goes into it, but it’s an amazing experience.”
The theme of the show was Lord of Yale: Fellowship of GPT. The accompanying film followed three students on their journey to retrieve ChatGPT. Enlisted by a fictional University President Maurie McInnis, a Sigma Chi fraternity president, Yale Record editor-in-chief and the “chosen one” were the school’s only hope of saving Yale from the chaos following the loss of ChatGPT.
Though the show didn’t begin until midnight, students lined up in their costumes as early as 10 p.m. to get their pick of seats for the show.
“It was a little annoying waiting in line, but I really liked the costumes, the performance before, and the movie they made was really funny,” Jeremiah Olubowale ’29 said. “I was hoping that it went really well because everyone hyped it up so much beforehand, but I was pleasantly surprised and understood the hype.”
This year, the student band Flannel opened the concert at 11:30 p.m. Flannel, whose group members were dressed as Phineas and Ferb characters, performed a medley of songs from the television show.
The film featured various professors and residential college leadership, including the Berkeley and Jonathan Edwards heads of college.
Every year, the film features a celebrity cameo. This year’s celebrity feature was English musician and Beatles member, Paul McCartney. Featured as the grandfather of two of the characters, Woolsey Hall erupted in applause when McCartney lit up the screen.
Preparations for the cameo began over the summer and continued throughout the start of the school year.
“When looking for cameos, I just cold emailed about 200 celebrities,” Juliette Mandelbrot ’28, YSO cellist and the Halloween show’s producer, said. “I grew up on the Beatles and his music, so I was absolutely thrilled to be able to include him in the Halloween show.”
Woolsey Hall is located at 500 College St.
Update, Nov. 3: The headline of this article has been updated.