On the morning of Sept. 24, Alumni Park was quiet — its gated facade imposed almost a veil of silence and inactivity onto the area, save for the few students who managed to cut through on their way to class, their dorm or a meal. On Sept. 26, the area joined campus in the flurry of Trojan Family Weekend activity, filled with dozens of tables and chairs, food stations, decorations and happy families. By Monday evening, it was silent again.

The apparent shapeshifting of the green could be attributed to magic, but the reality is simply a team of teams — roughly 100 people working at incredible speeds to prepare USC’s spaces for the many events it holds throughout the school year.

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Beyond pure setup, the planning for any given University event — done far out of the public eye — is occurring nearly 24/7. For Adam Rosen, USC’s associate vice president for Cultural Relations and University Events, it’s a regular day on the job.

“My department produces all of the events for the president’s office and anything that’s large or reputational for the University that would be maybe outside of that,” Rosen said. “Things like commencement, campus activity on tailgate days, large groundbreakings, building openings, galas, all of those things.”

Rosen has been with USC for just over 13 years. He has worked in event planning and event spaces for most of his career, including marketing events for Hollywood. Before USC, he hadn’t worked in the same place for more than five years at a time.

“I was looking for a transition,” he said. “I was in [public relations] marketing events, and the agency world … is not a 9-to-5 job. It’s like a 9-to-10 p.m. job. And I met my wife and had a child while I was doing that and decided that I wanted to move to something that felt a little more stable, with a little less travel and a little more of a home base.”

After interviewing with a few companies he didn’t end up liking, his wife convinced him to interview for an open position at the University.

“I almost turned it down,” he said. “After a three-and-a-half-hour interview with three people, I called her on the way out and said, A, ‘I think I’m going to get this job,’ and B, what a great place that this is now versus where I thought it was. And four months later, and I think nine interviews later, I was at the University.”

Rosen said one of the biggest changes he experienced was going from producing events himself to managing teams of event producers. It is a change, however, he has since more than gotten over.

“[It was] something I wasn’t sure I was going to love, but I do,” he said, “and I love how I’m able to influence and impact the young, incredible talent that comes through our department, whether they’re students or the staff, to be able to see how they grow in what they do.”

For Rosen and his team, the planning and production never ends. According to Jennifer Ammons, executive director of University Events within the Office of Cultural Relations and University Events, preparations for Trojan Family Weekend 2025 have already begun.

“It really is a full year of planning,” said Ammons, who has been at USC for 12 years. “Once you’re wrapped up, there’s … a little bit of a breather, but [once we’re] closing out, we send out post-event reports.”

By Rosen and Ammons’ descriptions, planning for almost any event at USC is an elaborate, delicate song and dance. The two must coordinate with one other, teams within their department, teams outside of their department but within the University and — last, but certainly not least — outside vendors. In his explanation, Rosen used Trojan Family Weekend as a prime example.

“[Trojan Family Weekend] begins with reviewing what has happened, talking about learnings, looking at what the schedule will be for the next year, waiting for the [college football] conference to tell us what those dates of football will be so we can figure out what the actual games are going to be and then we start right back into the process of planning,” Rosen said.

Similar to events such as New Student Convocation, Trojan Family Weekend involves participation from many of the schools at USC. This adds another layer of communication and planning, another set of choreographed moves that the office has been practicing for years.

“It really is a conglomeration of events from all across the University,” Rosen said. “All the schools and units, we asked them to provide programming. Part of that is them doing that, as well as opening their classes to parents. And so a lot of it is the communication back and forth to those different groups — we call them our campus partner groups — who are part of that planning process.”

Rosen said his office sends emails to these partner groups — a list of about 200 people in total — once a month, or more, asking for updates or informing them of new responsibilities. According to Ammons, the registration and information website for Trojan Family Weekend could go up months in advance.

While the physical setup for events like Trojan Family Weekend might occur just days beforehand, USC notifies its two main partners for this matter, Town & Country Event Rentals and Bright Event Rentals, months in advance as well. Kacey Doherty, event director for Town & Country Event Rentals, said her company has been working with USC for nearly 20 years.

“We work with every department on campus who has event teams and produce different events like groundbreaking ceremonies, student activities, USC commencement and Trojan Family Weekend, football tailgating — anything that is requiring tables and chairs and tents and things that will help the event in motion,” she said.

Town & Country works with the University through phone calls, emails and site visits. As part of their services, Doherty and her team produce computer-aided design drawings of the event space in question. These diagrams, Doherty said, are a huge help in planning where each item will be placed and what the company will need to set it up.

Then the time comes to build the event space. For a massive event such as the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, students might notice tents being erected a full week in advance. For Trojan Family Weekend, the team needed just two days. Ammons says this is largely on purpose to limit the disruption of student life as much as possible.

“If we’re in a space, we don’t want to take more time there than would be needed so that others can enjoy it,” Ammons said.

Ammons, like Rosen, said she enjoys her job and being able to see the fruits of her team’s labor, especially during events that bring in more than just students.

“We’re a department that really enjoys what we do,” Ammons said. “Trojan Family Weekend specifically is always a highlight, because families and parents in particular are just so happy to see their students … Seeing those reunions at the Welcome Lounge and whatnot are just fun to see — it’s just a good vibe, and everyone’s happy and excited.”