Madison’s annual Halloween festival alone is enough to make city officials and local law enforcement batten down the hatches.
Throw in a University of Wisconsin football game and Homecoming festivities, and things could get interesting.
As such, planning officials for Freakfest held a press conference Tuesday, laying out the city’s plans to ensure a smooth operation of all the weekend’s events.
“We had to put a little more thought into it, but we’ve been preparing for this for months so we feel we have a good plan in place,” Frank Productions spokesperson Charlie Goldstone said in an interview with The Badger Herald.
Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, said law enforcement decided to increase its presence Friday night and Saturday at the game and the festival because Freakfest, a UW football game and Homecoming are all converging on the same day.
Because crime at Freakfest has been kept to a minimum in recent years, Verveer said, there was an original idea to decrease police presence and not use the City-County Building as an arrest processing center. But that idea has since been scrapped due to Homecoming.
“When all is said and done, there actually will be more cops working this year, taking into account all cops working the entire weekend, than we’ve seen in previous years for Freakfest,” Verveer said. “But again, it’s not a reflection whatsoever on Freakfest.”
He added officers from the Dane County Sheriff’s Office and the Wisconsin State Patrol will be on hand. Madison Police Capt. Carl Gloede told The Badger Herald last week 150 MPD officers will be in the event zone.
According to a city of Madison statement, all streets crossing State Street will close at 5 p.m. Saturday for Freakfest. Johnson Street will also be closed, and its eastbound traffic will be directed onto Bassett Street.
Bus routes 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 will be directed away from State Street and the downtown area starting at 5 p.m. and will last through the end of the service day, another statement said.
Maps of the scene and other information can be found at Freakfestlive.com.
Westbound and southbound traffic from the Camp Randall Stadium area of Regent Street will be unaffected, the statement said. Left turns onto Park Street for Regent’s eastbound traffic will not be allowed.
The statement said traffic delays are expected, and Goldstone added those could last from 5:30 until 8:30 p.m.
Goldstone said Frank Productions expects an attendance of 40,000 or more for Freakfest, and advance ticket sales are more than double than what they were last year.
In 2011, about 30,000 people attended the festival, Goldstone said. He attributed this year’s rise in interest to the Homecoming football game being held that afternoon and the musical guests booked for the event.
Mac Miller and Big Gigantic will headline the event.
