A small group of community members made their voices heard Thursday regarding this year’s Freakfest at the Downtown Coordinating Committee meeting, prompting plans to increase student involvement in preparing for this year’s celebration and future events.The committee decided to meet at Memorial Union in the hopes of eliciting a student response for the event, Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said.
In attendance were members of the Associated Students of Madison, including ASM Vice Chair Tom Templeton, State-Langdon President Scott Resnick and fellow member and one-time brief City Council candidate Michael Johnson.
Assistant to the Mayor Joel Plant gave a brief history of the event, including the significance of the degree of student input in the planning process.
According to Plant, there has been some student involvement in the planning process in the past, yet no group or student has had a continuous relationship with city planner’s from start to finish.
“Every year we get a group of students who say ‘we want to get involved,'” Plant said, adding the students then do not stay engaged in the planning process.
Verveer agreed student planning in the past has not been at a high level, saying he has put in effort to encourage more student involvement in the planning process.
“Students haven’t been very engaged (in the Freakfest planning process),” Verveer said. “Not to criticize other (previous) ASM sessions, but ASM never was really all that interested in other times we have tried (to involve students).”
Madison Police Department Capt. Mary Schauf brought up the point that there has not been a complete void of previous student involvement.
“From 2003 to 2006, ASM was at the table,” Schauf said. “It was a brainstorming group, and there were some great ideas that came out of that.”
However, at the onset of success of the city-sanctioned Freakfest, there was less interest in being involved with the project, she added.
ASM Legislative Affairs Chair Adam Johnson encouraged the creation of a shared committee in charge of planning Freakfest comprised of students, the DCC and other city officials.
Johnson said this would guarantee some sort of student involvement, and the number of students would not necessarily have to be that high — just enough so the students are represented and the planning is not “a shot in the dark.”
Plant said he is supportive of a “working group” to be created for the sake of getting students involved with planning.
The committee was also supportive of pursuing plans ensuring this hypothetical committee or working group could continue on to help plan the Mifflin Street Block Party and future Freakfests.
Details of Freakfest were also made clear during the meeting.
Pending City Council approval, State Street would be gated from 7 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., with tickets being $7 in advance and $10 at the gate.
Various musical acts will perform on stages in the State Street area. Third Eye Blind will perform on the main stage by the Capitol, along with Cage the Elephant and Push Play.
Other acts performing include local band The Nod, Locksley, New York’s DJ Will Calder, along with other student bands.
