It’s only two hours to the start of the street dance competition. And the sponsor has put Tian Lin on the spot again.
还有两个小时街舞比赛就要开始了，赞助商再次让田林（音译）陷入了困境。
Tian, the organizer of the campus event, needs to find students to dress up as the sponsor’s brand mascots. But who’s prepared to sweat in heavy costumes and bounce around like fools?
田林是该校园活动的组织者，他需要找些同学扮成赞助商的品牌吉祥物。但是谁愿意在厚重的服装里满头大汗，像个傻瓜一样地跳来跳去呢？
The sponsor threatened not to pay up. To keep them happy, Tian has already introduced a game which is irrelevant to the dance competition. The sponsor wants the master of ceremonies to invite members of the audience to see who can swallow a cup of yoghurt quickest.
赞助商以不付款为要挟。为了让赞助商们满意，田林已经添加了一个和街舞比赛完全不相关的游戏节目。赞助者想让主持人邀请观众上台参加比赛，看谁能够在最短的时间内喝下一杯酸奶。
But trying to keep your sponsors happy has its limits. Tian, 20, refused. “I don’t want to make the competition a complete joke. It’s a student activity, not a promotion event for the sponsor,” said Tian from Beijing Foreign Studies University.
但要让赞助商满意也是有限度的。20岁的田林回绝了这一要求。就读于北外的他表示：“我不想让这项比赛变成一个大笑话。这是一项学生活动，不是为赞助商做的推广活动。”
Many student organizers complain that sponsors’ demands make campus events too commercial. But meeting these demands seems to be the only way for students to get enough money to stage a professional show.
许多学生组织者抱怨赞助商的要求令校园活动变得过于商业化。但要想筹集到足够资金来举办一个专业活动，却只能满足他们的要求。
This requires a big venue, posters, a spectacular stage, first-class PA, and celebrity guest performers. To cover these expenses, student organizers need tens of thousands of yuan for a single event. To attract more sponsors they are forced to commercialize campus events.
一个专业的活动需要一处大场地，海报，绚丽的舞台，一流的管理团队和名人表演嘉宾。要支付这些费用，学生组织者开展一个活动就需要好几万元。为了吸引更多的赞助商，他们不得不把校园活动变得商业化。
But this is unwelcome on campus. Students, for example, strongly dislike the “Jeanswest Building”。 This is a teaching block at Qinghua University which was renamed after the university received a donation from the apparel chain store Jeanswest. Students claim that the name has made the building a huge outdoor billboard.
但此举在校园内并不受欢迎。比如，学生们非常不喜欢“真维斯楼”这个名字。这是清华大学的一栋教学楼，在接受了服装连锁店“真维斯”的赞助后，清华为该楼重新命名。学生们称这个名字让该楼变成了一个巨大的露天广告牌。
Lu Shuai is an instructor of student activities at Sun Yat-sen University. She warned student organizers that superficial factors, such as the size of posters and the number of stage lights, are not important.
路帅（音译）是中山大学的学生活动辅导员。她告诫学生组织者说，那些表面的东西，比如说海报的大小和舞台灯光的数量并不重要。
“Students are attracted by a campus event because of its creative, interesting content,” said Lu. “Few will cheer for a shallow, dull event, even if it has a gorgeous stage.”
“学生们之所以会被一些活动所吸引是因为活动的内容有趣且具有创意。”路帅说，“即使舞台华丽，也几乎没有学生会为一个肤浅又无聊的活动而欢呼。”
Cui Zhaoqian, 20, a journalism student at Zhengzhou University, expected fun challenges such as pop quiz and impromptu drama in her school’s talent show. But while the stage looked fancy, Cui was bored by clichéd singing and dancing shows.
郑州大学新闻专业学生，20岁的崔朝倩（音译）曾经很期待一些有趣的校园活动，比如说学校才艺秀上的猜谜和即兴表演。但现实是，她常常面对的是老套的歌舞表演节目已，尽管舞台很华丽，但她去感到厌恶。而且，到处都是整形诊所的广告，这让她觉得很尴尬。
By contrast, a campus quiz with little sponsorship and publicity has been a magnet for Cui and her schoolmates for six years. Cui revealed the secret of its charm: “The organizers always design interactive, fun games to make heavy topics enjoyable.”
相反，一个举办了六年，几乎没有赞助和宣传的校园比赛却总能吸引崔朝倩和同学们的注意。崔朝倩揭示了该活动的魅力所在：“他们的组织者总能设计一些有趣的互动游戏使得沉闷的话题变得欢快起来。”今年比赛的主题是中国共产党建党90周年。组织者决定以热门电视节目《我爱记歌词》的形式来举办红歌赛。选手们演唱时，屏幕上将出现歌词填空题，来挑战他们的记忆力。
However, to bring their ideas to life, students cannot avoid involving sponsors. Most colleges are unable to fund every event on campus. Gao Xing, 24, a reporter from Xinhua News Agency, organized dozens of successful galas when he was at college. He advised students to dare to say no.
然而，要真正把想法变成现实的话，学生们就不可避免地要和赞助商交涉。大部分学校都无法资助所有的校园活动。新华社记者，24岁的高星（音译）在大学时曾成功组织过很多活动。他建议同学们要敢于说“不”。
“Tell sponsors that students dislike overly-commercialized campus events, that they will thus fail to promote their brands to students and waste their money,” said Gao. “They will certainly have second thoughts about their requirements.”
“告诉赞助商，同学们不喜欢过度商业化的校园活动，这样做不仅达不到在学生中宣传品牌的效果，还会浪费财力，”高星说，“而后他们当然会重新考虑他们的要求。”
