Bramwell, the head Sun God planner, said the festival’s centralized structure allows for 12 hours of continuous programming.

“It gives us a lot of really creative opportunities, whereas in the past you had essentially some random stuff going on in the daytime with no real central purpose to it,” he said. “Plus, it’s more safe. I would take the criticism of ‘caging’ Sun God to not have someone get hurt at a festival I was in charge of.”

According to former A.S. President Utsav Gupta, who ran on a platform promising to uncage Sun God, the endeavor proved unfeasible.

“We weren’t able to bring out [concert events] to Price Center, and that’s because there’d be too many people trying to look at the concert,” Gupta said. “And Price Center is just not a good location.”

Like last year, the festival — which features headliners Drake, Michelle Branch, Relient K and Thrice — will include the Dance and Midway Tents, a rock-climbing wall, obstacle course and human foosball game, along with the standard row of vendors. Additionally, according to Bramwell, student-organization booths will have a stronger presence on the field than they have in the past.

Festival coordinators eliminated last year’s “Loft on the Lawn” tent, as well as the noontime Price Center concerts leading up to the event. However, Gupta was able to schedule the Junkyard Derby on Friday this year by paying for it using council funds; in 2009, administrators pressured the council to stage the derby the week after the festival.

Event co-coordinator Jeanette Ordonez said this year’s festivities are spaced throughout the week — including a silent rave, a mini Sun God Carnival and an A.S.-sponsored water slide. In addition, student radio station KSDT will hold indie music festival “Radiology” today at 6 p.m.; last year, it was known as “Shun God,” and was held on the same day as the main festival.

KSDT Manager Meredith Wong said the radio station could not hold the event on Friday because all Student Center space was already reserved by the administration, which she said would be detrimental to the turnout of the event.

“I think there are definitely differences on who will be coming,” Wong said. “On Sun God, it would be a bunch of students who were roaming around campus. On Thursday, I think it’s students who are housed in the Student Center, and people who just heard about it.”

She said she though the administration had pressured the station to hold the event on a different day because it wished to continue “caging” the festival.

“Some of [the administrators] were nice, but some of the admin. would try to pit us against A.S. students, telling us that we’re betraying them,” Wong said. “I think the admin. is really afraid of people’s safety on Sun God, and that’s why they’re restricting us. They want to be able to have police manage everything, and when everything is spread out, they have that fear.”

Director of University Centers Paul Terzino said the university tried to give more freedom to the student council this year.

“We are reserving all of our facilities — that is, the Price Center and Student Center — holding that for A.S., so that they can have freedom in managing the day,” he said.

However, Bramwell said the council does not have any specific plans for the Student Center on the day of the festival.

“We never placed any holds — any reservations — with KSDT,” Bramwell said. “We had no reason to block them from doing their show on Friday.”

Marshall College senior Alice Nash said she preferred the atmosphere of the all-campus festival.

“I just liked how things were spread out over campus first year, but now things are just in RIMAC,” Nash said. “It’s kind of very centralized, and I like the all-inclusive thing.”

Both Bramwell and UCSD Police Chief Orville King refused to provide the cost of security or number of Staff Pro employees and police officers that will be patrolling the campus today and tomorrow. Bramwell said the cost of security on Friday would be roughly equal to past years, but that additional security would be required for the wristband line on Thursday. In 2007-08, the police bill was $15,000. That figure grew to $35,000 in 2008-09.

Students can pick up wristbands Thursday from noon to 6 p.m. and Friday starting at 9 a.m. at a box office on Marshall Field.

Additional reporting by Ruba Akel, Ayelet Bitton, Regina Ip.

Readers can contact Angela Chen at [email protected].