Spring"s in the air, and it"s OU"s bacchanal season
By Corey Ryan
Athens NEWS Campus Reporter
May 8, 2008
Plastic cups and kegs litter the lawns while bands blare live music. Everyone wears shorts, soaking up the sun. The parties start before lunch on Saturday and end early Sunday morning.
Halloween may be the notorious block party that shuts down Court Street in Athens, but spring brings a new kind of party. This is festival season.
Saturday is PalmerFest, a day of house parties and college bands. The following weekend brings Five-Fest, a music blowout that busses attendees to the Big Red Barn, located on Stage Coach Road in the hills just southeast of Athens.
After Memorial Day weekend when students usually leave campus to enjoy a classless Monday, Mill Fest, on May 31, is the last festival before finals.
“I always thought fall was fun because I like football season, but (during) spring quarter there is always something to do every weekend,” said Five-Fest originator Dominic Petrozzi, an Ohio University graduate. “In my eyes, spring quarter is where it’s at.”
What to expect
PalmerFest is one big house party, or more accurately, one big party shared among lots of houses. Some houses have bands and some stick to a sound system with recorded music. Although some houses throw open parties where people are free to go in and out as they please, some hosts fence in their party, preventing unknown guests from drinking the house’s beer (and risking citations from state liquor agents). The general rule, though, is that it’s always best to know someone with a house.
“All of my buddies are coming down, but I’m worried about them getting into places,” freshman Britton Dove admitted. “But I just want to party on someone’s roof.”
PalmerFest lacks structure, serving not as a block party, but as a day of multiple house parties. In contrast, Five Fest is an evolved festival machine.
Petrozzi has organized the event for four straight years (One-Fest, Two-Fest, etc.). This year, Petrozzi and his partners will put on a 13-hour music festival on May 17, selling tickets at various representatives’ locations, online and at the event. Courtside Pizza, 85 N. Court St., and Outer Glow, 14 S. Court St., are two ticket distributors.
Starting at 11 a.m., students load buses en route to the Big Red Barn, an open ridgetop field with a stage. Performances start at noon with DJ Edski, this year’s MC. Eleven bands and artists each perform 30-minute sets until Edski takes the stage again at 8:30 p.m.
After a crowd of 10,000 came last year, Petrozzi said he expects almost 15,000 participants to attend Five-Fest this year. He said he has met with representatives from the Athens Police Department and the OU Police Department to have a bigger security presence to control a bigger crowd. Petrozzi also said there will be more portable restrooms and buses this year. (These yearly Fests are notorious for not having enough restoom facilities, and the nearby woods get a steady watering all day long, whether it rains or not.)
Despite rumors that Anheuser-Bush vendors are providing beer, Petrozzi said Five-Fest will be like the previous four where attendees need to bring their own beverages. This actually results in fest-goers erring on the side of bringing too much, rather than too little, with some carrying nearly their weight in cheap beer into the festival grounds.
Mill Fest, like PalmerFest, is a series of house parties hosted by the students living on and around Mill Street. Because the street is longer than Palmer, Mill Fest is not as crowded. This fest serves as the last spring party before finals week.
“It should be a safe, fun time,” said Allan McCoy, a junior who lives on Mill Street.
McCoy said he went to a meeting of Mill Street residences for Mill Fest. The meeting, put on by OU’s Department of Off-Campus Housing, was not about setting an official date. It was about safety and liability.
How to protect yourself from the law
The Center for Student Legal Services, 50 S. Court St., provides literature packed with tips for party-goers and party hosts to avoid legal problems and to handle police if an altercation occurs.
For all party-goers, it is important to not carry an open container of alcohol onto the sidewalk or street.
One big rule is that if you host a party, you’re partly responsible for your guests’ behavior. If they screw up, it could come back on you.
When serving alcohol, you should only serve guests who are at least 21. According to CSLS, the maximum penalty for someone convicted of serving (alcohol to) an underage individual is up to six months in jail, a $1,000 fine or both.
The other main concerns for party hosts are excessive noise and minor misdemeanor charges with a $150 maximum fine, according to the CSLS.
It is also illegal to charge for alcohol without a permit.
If you encounter police officers during your festival experience, CSLS recommends being polite, and the best policy is to obey the law.
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