There’s a smell of new paint that hangs in the air. Construction paper and cables line the floors of the Russell Miller Theatre in the fine arts center. People with headsets and costumes rush on and offstage while actors mouth lines to themselves. By tonight, the words won’t be pained over.

As people squeezed onto two sets of metal bleachers in the Preston Center to watch eight men in strange wheelchairs slam into each other at full force, it was apparent that no one in the crowd knew anything about murderball. “I thought they’d all be bigger and stronger,” said a student in the crowd.

He wasn’t one of those kids who played a sport as far back as they could remember. In fact, his middle school gym teacher had to ask him repeatedly to give basketball a chance. Yet senior point guard Orlando Mendez-Valdez is prepared to take Western’s basketball team to the NCAA tournament for the second year in a row.

“Welcome to the first annual, and I’d like to stress annual, Starry Night Music Festival!” Bryan Grace, creator and organizer of Starry Night, has been a busy man for the last few months. In June, he realized that residents in Bowling Green were looking for a new musical outlet.