Ask any University of Wisconsin student who attended the 2002 version of Freakfest and they’ll probably tell you today’s festival doesn’t deserve the name.
While the festivities of present Freakfests are often rowdy and rambunctious, they pale in comparison to the violent nature of the Freakfests of times past.
Luckily for attendees today, it would seem the Halloween gathering has pulled a 180. This evolution took more than 30 years — bad habits die hard.
University of Wisconsin students started the festival in 1977, though at that time it was a rowdy, alcohol-laden Halloween celebration known as State Street Halloween Party.
The event gained popularity the following year, and in 1979 UW’s student government, the Wisconsin Student Association, turned the event into a fundraiser. The organization got a permit for the street and gathered proceeds from beer sales.
This easygoing tradition would carry on in a similar fashion for a number of years until a major turn of events in 2002. The event led to such a nasty civic upheaval that it could probably inspire a piece of Banksy Art.
With crowds of more than 60,000 and the police force amounting to only 40 cops, peace was certainly not the mission of the Madison crowd that night.
The once innocent celebration turned violent as crowds broke windows and caused thousands of dollars worth of property damage.
With their pepper spray having run out, Madison cops ended up using tear gas for the first time since the student Vietnam riots that occurred in the late ’60s.
The police force’s methods of crowd control, however, would not deter vandalism and rioting — along with pepper spray and tear gas — in the following years. In 2004, it all culminated in more than 400 arrests on charges of intoxication, underage drinking, public urination and more.
With the event costing Madison more than $100,000 each year, the city approached a crossroads. They could either end the event or seek out new management to run it in a way that wouldn’t culminate in citywide chaos.
In 2006, the city put extra care into making sure things went over smoothly. That year’s celebration — following years of civil unrest — would finally end civilly. Both arrests and handouts of tickets diminished, giving the celebration an air of credibility.
With the sponsorship of Frank Productions the following year, the Halloween bash would take on the official name known more for having noteworthy headliners than smashed windows — Freakfest.
In the years that followed, the festival continued its march out of chaos. As arrest rates and incidents of property damage continued to drop, it seemed the prominence of musical acts continued to grow.
After emerging from its angry tear-gassed adolescence, Freakfest has proven itself as the definitive way to celebrate Halloween in Wisconsin.
