CONNOR HOFFMAN
Staff Writer
Kegs, funnels, beer cans, banging music and thousands of students are all things one could expect to see in downtown Fredonia from May 1- May 3. In recent years, these parties began to get a little unruly, and this caused the university to cancel its on-campus version of FRED Fest this year.
Local news networks such as WGRZ, WKBW and TWC News were drawn to the campus to report the cancellation last week. These news networks found out about the news after students took to Twitter and Facebook to publish their opinions.
In fact, Fredonia Police Chief Brad Meyers first heard about the on-campus FRED Fest cancellation from the news networks. Meyers wasn’t very surprised when he heard the news.
“It wasn’t anything that we hadn’t been discussing at Campus Community Coalition meetings at the end of last year and the beginning of this year,” said Meyers.
“Cancelling the activities on the campus initially will probably not have a huge impact on the off-campus activities,” said Meyers. He hopes “that as time goes on, that as students leave the campus and new students come on who haven’t experience FRED Fest in its formal state, that the off-campus activities will begin to dwindle.”
Meyers went on to explain that the off-campus parties have been getting way out of control.
“Frequently we would go to parties, and the individuals that lived there would tell us they had nothing to do with it — that the people had started to gather on their lawn, and they can’t get the people to leave,” Meyers said.
Meyers believes that FRED Fest has gotten its expected “burst of attention,” and that the media will now move onto other stories.
Despite the university’s announcement of this year’s FRED Fest cancellation, many have created Facebook pages advertising FRED Fest apparel. Some have also created event pages for the whole weekend or specific parties.
Sean Miller, a Fredonia alumnus who graduated in 2007, is the creator of the FRED Fest 2015 page on Facebook. Miller has been to eight FRED Fests and has created a Facebook page for the last five.
Miller said the reason he created the page was “to let any alumni know when Fred Fest was being held in case they wanted to attend this year.”
Since Miller created the page, he believes that he is partially the reason that so many Fredonia alumni come to FRED Fest every year.
Miller felt the cancellation has been in the making for years.
“To be honest, I had been expecting them to cancel FRED Fest for maybe the last five years, ever since the girl was set on fire, or even in 2012, when there were nearly 100 arrests,” explained Miller. Although he felt it was coming, he is still surprised that the university followed through with the eradication.
Miller was not surprised by how much controversy and media attention the cancellation has brought.
“As bad as the partying can get, you’re dealing with a tradition that’s gone back to 1980. You can’t just get rid of a 34-year old tradition and not expect backlash to happen,” he said.
He then went on to compare the current situation at Fredonia to what Brockport experienced when their spring festival, Brock the Port, was cancelled. He commented that there was a Facebook group specifically created to bring back Brock the Port; it had nearly 2,000 members at the time.
Miller feels the media attention Fredonia is receiving is a “double-edged sword.”
“On one hand, it’s good that the news stations are picking up on this … But at the same time, it’s making people aware just how bad it gets during FRED Fest,” explained Miller.
He went on to explain that “all the bad behavior is being highlighted instead of the fact that an annual tradition has been cancelled.”
Miller believes that, at first, this decision will do more harm than good, but as the years go by, FRED Fest will start to settle down.
“If this decision sticks for future years, I could see things get more and more tamer. FRED Fest 2015 was likely going to be my last FRED Fest anyways, and I’m sure as time goes on students are not going to bother bringing their friends down for an otherwise normal weekend”said Miller.
Little has been heard about how the village residents have reacted to the news of Miller’s Facebook event.
“I don’t know if any of them are really rushing to judgement yet, I think they’re kind of just taking it in” said Meyers.