Anyone who wanted to keep an old Iowa State tradition alive grabbed a partner and stole a kiss Thursday night at the Campanile.

Mass campaniling, an annual Homecoming event, was held Thursday night at midnight after the Tim Mahoney concert, said Tracy Griffin, Homecoming Committee public relations officer and senior in journalism and mass communication.

Griffin said campaniling is a long tradition at ISU.

“You can just grab a friend and kiss under the Campanile to keep the tradition,” she said.

“Some [participants] are couples, some are friends, some just grab a little kiss on the cheek,”she said.

Brett Showalter, Homecoming Committee co-chairman and senior in agronomy, said ISU once had a 10 p.m. curfew, which led students to go against the rules and sneak out to the Campanile.

“They would meet under the Campanile at midnight and kiss at the stroke of midnight,” Showalter said. “It’s a tradition that has been going on for a long time.”

Campaniling, as the practice grew to be called, not only became a campus tradition, but a Homecoming tradition as well, he said.

“Every year during Homecoming we have mass campaniling,” Showalter said.

There is usually quite a large turnout for the event, depending on the weather, Showalter said.

“We usually have over 1,000 people there,” he said, while Griffin had estimated a more conservative number of 75-100 couples for Thursday’s event.

Not everyone who comes to kiss under the campanile gets to stand directly below the clock tower.

“There’s usually a lot of people in the Campanile, but it spills out over the sidewalks and into the trees,” Showalter said.

Griffin said students do not have to come prepared.

Showalter agreed.

“Either take a date or find a date while you’re out there, and hopefully get a kiss out of the deal,” Showalter said.

Directly following the mass campaniling there were fireworks, sponsored by the Homecoming committee and set off by Prism Fireworks and Pyrotechnics out of Fort Dodge.