The Villanova Band mainly plays at football games, basketball games and concerts, but its members can be seen swapping their instruments for t-shirts at the end of every week.  

The Villanova Band holds t-shirt (also known as “V-Shirt”) sales every Friday afternoon at the Oreo from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. The shirts come in a wide variety of colors and are sold as short-sleeved, long-sleeved and tank tops. Each shirt features the Villanova “V” on the front and the lyrics to “V For Villanova” on the back. 

Both short-sleeved shirts and tanks sell for $10, and long-sleeved shirts sell for $12. Also available are Villanova Band sunglasses for five dollars, stickers for one dollar and coffee tumblers for $20. Customers can pay with their choice of cash, Wildcard or Venmo. 

Junior band member Brian McFarland serves as the band’s Vice President of Fundraising. He is the main organizer and point of contact for the shirt sales and any other type of fundraising for the band. According to McFarland, the biggest sale of the year usually takes place during the first Friday of the school year.

“The biggest sale is almost always the first Friday of the year,” McFarland said. “You get a lot of freshmen who don’t have a lot of merch, so they see a good, cheap option and they want to pick up stuff.” 

Other sales that generate a large income for the band include Family Weekend and Homecoming.

Setting up a sale each Friday requires a great deal of preparation and organization. Many steps are taken to ensure that each sale is a success.  

“Early in the week, we have to reserve a Wildcard reader and a table,” McFarland said. “The table also saves us a location, usually in the warmer weather by the Oreo, and in the colder weather, we’ll be in the Connelly Center.”   

McFarland does not organize all of these sales on his own. Also important in the sale process are the Assistants to the VP of Fundraising. This group consists of five Villanova Band members who help McFarland by fulfilling tasks such as organizing work schedules for the sales, transporting merchandise to and from sales and more. Sophomore Mark Faverzani is one of McFarland’s assistants. 

“We do mostly a lot of inventory and folding shirts and things like that, just making sure it’s all ready for Fridays so he [McFarland] can be ready for the sale and we can make the band some money,” Faverzani said. 

Aside from individual sales, the assistants also help McFarland by influencing some of the decisions made regarding ideas for new products and shirt designs. For example, one new shirt designed at the beginning of the school year was the new Kelly green V-Shirt, an idea that was developed by both McFarland and his team. 

“I think we have a lot of influence,” Faverzani said. “I mean, there’s not really a lot of decisions Brian makes without at least consulting us first. I know especially when it comes to inventory and different designs for shirts and things like that, Brian always comes to the assistants first and lets us pitch ideas and lets us be part of the decision-making process in all the steps of the way.”

While McFarland and his team are in charge of running each sale, they are also assisted by the freshmen members of the band. Each freshman is required to work for 30 minutes during each sale, with their schedules generated by McFarland’s team. Freshman Charlie Zaybekian described how the freshmen are involved in the selling process. 

“The freshmen are kind of doing most of the work during the sale,” Zaybekian said. “A lot of the upperclassmen are managing all of the money and the shirts, but when it comes to the sale, the freshmen’s job is to call people over, make the sale, give them the shirts and then they go to the upperclassmen who will then put in what is sold and how much money is made.”

Although required, Zaybekian enjoys working the sales and believes them to be a lot of fun. 

“It’s a lot of fun mainly because you’ve got everyone in the band there, so you’re just kind of hanging out with a bunch of people you’re already good friends with for your entire shift,” Zaybekian said. 

With the money raised through these shirt sales, the Villanova Band has the opportunity to partake in fun activities that help strengthen the band community. Senior Liam Shay serves as the band’s Vice President of Fun and Games. 

“As the Vice President of Fun and Games for the band, my primary responsibility is coordinating with my team of assistants different social activities, either on or off campus, for the band to partake in,” Shay said. 

Events Shay has organized that utilized funds from the band’s shirt sales have included group trips to Sky Zone in May and Dave & Buster’s in August. According to Shay, these fundraising sales have been “super instrumental in making sure we are able to pull off these events.”