Most campuses have traditional events that occur every year, such as Welcome Back, Homecoming, maybe a Founder's Week, Parent's Weekend, and more. These are generally planned first, as a part of the scheduling process. At that point, you can begin your fill scheduling. Perhaps your program board looked at their Fall calendar and realized that during the middle of October there is nothing going on. It fills up that gap in your activities calendar.
Some gaps are important.
You don't want to burn-out your program board, or have their grades suffer. But, as a rule, you don't want to go too long without a campus event. Look ahead for opportunities for fill programs. This consists of two programs occuring at the same time, but appealing to different audiences. It is simple to do, because you're just presenting an alternative event to an existing one.