‘Real School Spirit’: Harvard Students Celebrate Tailgate, Drone Show at Game Against Brown

More than 16,000 football fans packed into Harvard Stadium on Saturday night for the second most-attended Harvard-Brown game of the past decade that sported a pregame tailgate and halftime drone show.

Harvard swiftly defeated the Brown Bears on Saturday for a 41-7 victory in a game that appeared decided from the kickoff. While the crowd thinned out after halftime, many students left impressed by the festivities of the game — and said they hoped to return for more.

The halftime show featured a 200-drone light show with formations of Harvard’s logos and athletics teams, like the Harvard crest, a football player throwing a spiral, and a crew boat.

“Everybody’s eyes were locked to the sky the entire time,” Elianna A. Carvalho ’29 said.

While Shreyan A. Paliwal ’29 was excited to go to the game, he said Harvard’s early lead made the competition less interesting. But he stayed for the drone show.

“The drone show was probably the highlight of the entire game,” Paliwal said.

The show marked the first major drone performance at a Harvard football game. The athletics department coordinated with Sky Elements Drones and the Dean of Students Office to put together the spectacle. The company’s website does not provide exact costs, and Harvard athletics spokesperson Imry Halevi declined to comment on the cost of the show.

Earlier in the afternoon, hundreds of Harvard and Brown students flooded Cumnock Field for a tailgate sponsored by final clubs, reminiscent of the one hosted at last year’s Harvard-Yale game. Last year’s unofficial festivities came after weeks of back-and-forth between students and the DSO, which had initially shut down hopes of any student-run tailgating.

Halevi said the College provided water and the field space for the safety of this year’s Harvard-Brown tailgaters.

Though the pregame event was ultimately shut down by Harvard University Police Department officers as the game kicked off, many students appreciated the opportunity to participate in pregame festivities without College supervision.

“At the game, you don’t get so much of a chance to see people and interact because everyone’s in the bleachers and you’re watching the game,” Talia C. Vaught ’26 said. “I think the tailgate is really where it feels like the school and the community comes together and actually has some real school spirit.”

While a similar tailgate was hosted at the last home Harvard-Brown game two years ago, several students said this year’s was especially fun — largely due to the size of the event and its attendance by both Harvard and Brown fans. Felicity Sibold ’27 said the festivities were “better than even Harvard-Yale last year.”

“I feel like there’s not a lot of events on campus where there’s a big community atmosphere, and it was really awesome,” Sibold, who is also a Crimson Blog editor, said. “It kind of felt like we were going to a normal school for the first time.”

The efforts to boost student engagement in the game are part of a broader effort by Harvard Athletics over the past several years to grow attendance and improve school spirit.

In an interview with The Crimson before last year’s Harvard-Yale game, Senior Associate Director of Athletics Nicholas Majocha said the department was trying to provide resources and space for student-led tailgates.

Though Halevi said Harvard Athletics did not directly coordinate with final clubs to organize the tailgate, he noted that the festivities were a result of close collaboration with the DSO and Harvard State, a student-run Instagram account with more than 3,000 followers that calls itself “The (un)Official Student Section of the Harvard Crimson.”

Several students said the turnout of the game, combined with the tailgate and engaging entertainment, made them want to attend more games in the future. Carvalho said that students’ enthusiasm while attending the game was “definitely a memory that will stand out.”

“You will see me at sporting events in the future,” she said. “I love to be around such a vibrant, enthusiastic crowd.”

—Staff writer Elyse C. Goncalves can be reached at elyse.goncalves@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @e1ysegoncalves.

—Staff writer Akshaya Ravi can be reached at akshaya.ravi@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @akshayaravi22.