This year’s Sun God festival could be subject to a significant logistical
overhaul — including potential changes to the event’s date, location, concert
access and alcohol sales policy — if recommendations made in a recent planning
report are approved by the A.S. Programming and University Events offices.
The Oct. 16 report analyzed health, safety and miscellaneous complaints
made by faculty and vendors after last year’s festival, and provided
recommendations for how Sun God 2008 should be changed to alleviate the issues.
UEO Director Martin Wollesen said that the event’s programmers are
constantly looking for ways to improve the festival’s execution, but that last
year’s 25th anniversary of Sun God spurred them to charter a comprehensive
report for future planning.
“We always go through a debrief process,” Wollesen said. “This year we
sort of said, ‘Let’s use this year, since it’s been 25 years, to make sure that
when we debrief, we have a document about that debrief.’ We want to, as a
campus, think globally and widely about this event.”
Wollesen and A.S. Associate Vice President of Programming Kevin Highland
organized seven meetings with the heads of numerous campus departments,
including the UCSD Police Department, the Office of Student Policies and
Judicial Affairs, the Office of Safety, Health and Security, Parking and
Transportation Services and the council of college deans. UEO and A.S.
Programming then either endorsed, chose not to endorse or abstained from
endorsing the recommendations listed in the 22-page report.
An endorsement does not guarantee that the recommendation will ultimately
be implemented, Wollesen said, as many circumstances that make certain options
seem prudent are in a constant state of flux. Similarly, decisions not endorsed
by the council or UEO are also not considered final.
“We’re not predetermining anything,” he said. “It may change over time.”
Many of the issues addressed in the report pertain directly to student
safety, which Wollesen said is always a primary concern of Sun God programmers.
Last year, 355 people — 197 students and 158 nonaffiliates — were arrested at
Sun God. Approximately 97 percent of the arrests were alcohol related, the
report said.
In response to those statistics, the report offered four recommendations:
decreasing the number of nonaffiliate tickets sold, discontinuing them
entirely, linking them to student IDs for easier tracking and stopping the sale
of tickets on the day of the event. Both UEO and A.S. Programming abstained on
the first possibility — meaning it will be discussed and decided upon at a
later date — but the programming department rejected the idea of limiting the
concert solely to UCSD students.
“The student body as a whole is very proud of the Sun God festival,” it
said in the report. “We want students to be able to welcome friends and family
to their campus, and together enjoy this extraordinary event.”
UEO abstained from endorsing the issue, while neither side objected to the
other two alternatives. The programming department did not endorse a similar
recommendation to limit nonaffiliate attendance: changing the festival’s date
to a Saturday.
The report also cited difficulties with crowd control at entrances and
exits during the evening concert as a major impediment to student safety, which
echoes a second criticism that police and emergency personnel are often blocked
from moving quickly around campus by student organization booths and other
events.
Both the council and UEO abstained on recommendations to consolidate the
event layout to a single site or shorten the number of festival hours, but did
not object to stricter oversight of the annual Junk Yard Derby, which takes
place on Peterson Hill. The report said that the derby limited emergency
access, and that the three-day duration made the event burdensome to supervise.
Ultimately, both offices approved a recommendation to revise the derby’s
safety standards, including a pre-event run-through of the vehicles on a
similar course.
UCSD programmer analyst and derby participant Wayde Gilliam said that the
derby is generally safe for participants, but that he understands why there may
have been some concerns posed by festival coordinators.
“I’m not exactly sure how they would do a pre-check of the vehicles,”
Gilliam said. “I think it’s a case-by-case type of concern with different types
of vehicles.”
Wollesen said that another focus of the report is to de-emphasize the
connection between the festival and alcohol consumption among students.
“I think what we’re really interested in doing is creating an event about
the UCSD community,” he said. “If the change is that students view it as a
community event as opposed to a drinking event, that’s an okay change.”
Chancellor Marye Anne Fox said at a Sept. 26 meeting that last year’s Sun
God was particularly problematic in regard to ensuring campus safety.
“We almost lost some kids last year,” she said. “So something is going
to have to be done. We’re going to have to elicit support from the student body
on how to make it safe but still fun. We have so few traditions that you don’t
want to do away with it, but you would like to make it safe.”
Wollesen said he had not heard about that particular incident, but that
his office is aware of the problems associated with the festival’s image as a
day of heavy drinking.
“We wouldn’t be surprised that binge drinking and alcohol abuse are real
issues at Sun God,” he said.
Several suggestions in the report specifically addressed alcohol-related
problems, including a one-day ban on alcohol sales at university venues.
Presently, neither UEO or the A.S. Council has objected to that provision.
The two offices are currently organizing public Sun God planning meetings
beginning later this month.
A steering committee consisting of representatives from the UCSD Police
Department, the six colleges, Student Health Services, the Office of Risk
Management, event facilities and UEO will be charged to advise the programming
office on festival planning and implementation.
Highland emphasized that no changes to the festival have yet been
implemented.
“[The report] contains no concrete actions on our part,” he said.
