Despite light rainfall, Champaign-Urbana’s fourth PechaKucha night was presented outdoors Friday night in collaboration by the CU Design Org. (CUDO) and the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

College students and locals alike filled the seats and ground in front of the amphitheater for the presentations. The show was projected onto a brick wall near the entrance to the building, so the entire mezzanine was overtaken by PechaKucha, a stylistic display of art.

The presentations began at 2020, or 8:20 p.m. CST, to coincide with the 20×20 theme of the event.

Thirteen artists had the opportunity to show slides — 20 slides for 20 seconds each — and told a story to go along with the images. All of the artists had a unique story to tell.

“This is an unprecedented event for Krannert, which is why we are so excited to bring this format and genre of performance to the community,” said Bridget Lee-Calfas, public information director for Krannert.

Previous PechaKucha events at the Canopy Club usually brought about 300 to 400 guests, which is about how many Lee-Calfas expected Friday night.

This was the first time CUDO, which opened in January of 2009, has partnered with Krannert.

“You don’t have to be a designer as your day job,” Christina Tapp, co-organizer said. “It’s for people who are interested in and appreciate design; CUDO is open to anyone.”

Krannert and CUDO planned for the event over a period of several months.

“It was very collaborative,” Lee-Calfas said. “CUDO is taking care of the posters, while Krannert is covering technical needs and marketing.”

All of the artists are locally based or from within the region. About half applied and the other half were invited to present to guarantee diversity in the show.

Joanne Manaster, a University professor, was one of the artists presenting at PechaKucha.

Manaster loves science, so her presentation was an informative slide show about the accomplishments of her favorite scientists, a project she updates on her website.

“I was excited to see that I was number 12 of 13,” Manaster said. “Everyone will have their beer goggles on and science might seem fun.”

Lee-Calfas was excited to see Krannert staff member Rose Morefield, who spoke at the event about costume design.

The audience applauded Morefield, who wished for the crowd to let their imaginations “go bananas” after showing a gender-switching costume concept in which a man was suited as a peach and a woman as a banana.

The final presenter, Michael Morgan, had the crowd laughing continually as he spoke about his journey to try and cure his vision problems.

Although it turned out he just needed glasses, mentioning superhero motivational T-shirts he created for encouragement made crowd member Matt Harlan laugh out loud.

Harlan, recent UI alumnus from the School of Art & Design, attended his second PechaKucha night with Gretchen Johnson, a graduate student in Education.

Harlan’s favorite presenter was Deke Weaver, whose presentation was titled “Elephant, a Performance.”

“I think he was my favorite presenter because I’ve had him before in class and he did that ridiculous song about elephants,” Harlan said, continuing to say the lyrics.

Johnson agreed with Harlan about the quality of Weaver’s performance.

“He sort of took a different approach to the presentation,” Johnson said. “I think he was a little bit — because he is a teacher probably — he was a little bit quicker about what he was doing … it was very good.”