Brrrr… Fest season hits A-town – Athens NEWS
Prepare yourselves, Athens residents and Ohio University students: Spring fest season is here.
Although it may not feel much like spring yet with snow showers and relatively cold temperatures forecast for this week, Friday and Saturday mark the first of a series of street parties in Athens student neighborhoods, as well as other organized fests and events, that take place almost until graduation weekend April 28-29.
Mill Fest this Saturday on Mill Street will be preceded the previous evening by the smaller Milliron Fest, at the Milliron Street apartment complexes. The fest schedule for this year, posted on the Fests of Athens, OH Facebook page, follows:
Friday-Saturday, March 17-18: Milliron and Mill fests, respectively
Friday, March 24: Congo Fest (presumably on Congress Street).
Saturday, March 25: High Fest on High Street.
Friday through Sunday, March 31-April 2: MILF Fest (not really a fest but rather a ribald phrasing for OU Moms Weekend).
Friday-Saturday, April 7-8: Palmer Place and Palmer fests, respectively.
Saturday, April 22: Number Fest, a college music festival outside Athens city limits.
Of all the street-fest events, Mill, High and Palmer fests are the biggies.
Typically, dozens of people are arrested during each spring festival, usually for underage drinking, public urination and/or public intoxication. This year, OUs Student Senate passed a resolution agreeing to reimburse student residents on fest streets for half the cost of obtaining a portable restroom if they choose to rent one for their apartment. Its an effort by Student Senate to reduce the number of students charged with public urination.
Athens Police Chief Tom Pyle said that nothing is changing this year with his departments philosophy for policing the fests. Since the change from quarters to semesters, police have become more aggressive about shutting down loud house parties on the fest streets, which has meant most street fests in recent years have been shut down by 4 or 5 p.m. Previously, the fests tended to run until late into the night, sometimes with violent and destructive results.
We close down the parties based on behavior. To say we are shutting them down earlier is kind of misleading, Pyle said. Actually, we are just responding to repeated offenses over a period of time. In the past several years those repeated offenses peak around 4 p.m. after several hours of drinking and warnings, so that is when we start shutting down parties for violations of nuisance-party laws. I dont see that changing; it is kind of inculcated now with the attendees and hosts.
The fests of the modern era are still wild, but dont bear much resemblance to spring fests of OUs past. For a period of time leading up until the late 1980s, OU held an officially sanctioned Springfest event annually with tons of beer trucked onto campus. Local, regional and national musical acts performed on a big outdoor stage (set up on the Mill Street intramural fields next to the Hocking River) playing for free before thousands of students and community members.
Simultaneous to Springfest, student tenants living in the nearby Stewart/Palmer/Mill Street neighborhood held porch parties before, during and after the event. Once Springfest was retired (as a result of the drinking age rising from 19 to 21) in 1988, those individual house parties evolved into the big block parties that continue today.
In the early years of Palmer and the other fests, when they did run late into the evening, conflict between partiers and police occasionally happened, with street fires, bottles and cans flung at police and fire personnel, and multiple arrests. In 2012, a house caught on fire during Palmer Fest (it was considered an arson at the time).
In terms of tips for student partiers, Pyle said that the best way to avoid getting your party shut down is to keep control of it.
Keep noise to a minimum and respect your neighbors. Keep litter cleaned up both during and after the party, Pyle shared from an APD FAQ. Keep your guests on your property; dont let them wander into the neighbors property. Dont let anyone leave with an open container. Dont allow underage persons to consume or possess alcohol at your party.
Dont allow anyone to throw items beyond your property line. Dont allow crazy or off-the-hook behavior at your party. Ask belligerent guests to leave; dont hesitate to summon police for help.
BELOW ARE some general tips from the kind-hearted folks at The Athens NEWS, who have all been there, believe it or not (this reporter is a 2014 OU grad himself, and Editor Terry Smith goes all the way back to the annual OU spring musical festivals of the early to mid 70s):
DO NOT carry an open container onto the sidewalk or street. Just dont do it. Similarly, try not to urinate in public.
Be wary of undercover liquor agents at fests and scattered throughout the town, especially outside gas stations and stores that sell alcohol, and parking lot entrances to student housing. Sometimes theyre fairly obvious old, bearded guys eyeing everyone suspiciously but other times theyre not. These officers can be very aggressive, so dont mess with them.
If a police officer approaches you on private property and you have an open container of alcohol but are underage, do not provide them with your ID unless you want to be arrested. You have a Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate yourself. You MUST provide the officer with your name and home address, however.
Know where your alcohol is coming from; Kegs are cool, but pour your drink yourself, and always try to ask whats in the jungle juice.
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Brrrr... Fest season hits A-town - Athens NEWS