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Revelry Festival organizers and student government leaders began to show their alarm last weekend after Madison officials announced last week there would be no Mifflin Street Block Party for the second consecutive year, 

The Madison Police Department issued a statement last week that said the city would not permit or sanction any May 4 event because the “toll of the spring student party far outweighs any benefit to the community.”

Wisconsin Union Directorate President and Revelry Executive Committee Chair Sarah Mathews said she and the other music festival organizers are stunned and upset by the city’s announcement.

“All of us were horrified,” she said, adding the campus police chief was equally shocked by the MPD statement. “This was completely out of left field for all of us.”

While Mathews acknowledged “you can’t just cancel Mifflin,” she said the increased crack down could benefit Revelry, as the idea of attending a large music festival could be more attractive to students now that they know police will be so strict on Mifflin.

Mathews added she thinks Revelry will be safer than Mifflin because it is on public grounds and police can control who comes in.   

Dan Statter, legislative affairs chair for the Associated Students of Madison, said he was surprised city leaders decided not to host Mifflin without first communicating to students.  

“An authoritative top-down approach that they have isn’t going to curve behavior, it’s just going to make students angry,” Statter said.

Lt. Dave McCaw said MPD will take the same action at Mifflin as it did last year because, like last year, no organization stepped up to sponsor the event and repay the estimated $200,000 costs of additional police enforcement.

“Nothing has been cancelled because nothing has been asked for,” McCaw said.

McCaw said there are two issues with finding sponsors for the event. The first problem is making Mifflin profitable enough to pay the city back for hiring at least 200 police officers to work overtime. The other setback is sponsors must abide by city ordinances for regulating special events.

Representatives from the Majestic Theatre were the last event sponsors in 2011, McCaw said. That year’s event resulted in two stabbings and 162 arrests ranging from sexual assaults and robberies to knees broken by baseball bats.

The police lieutenant said he would like to continue to enforce large-scale student gathering. However, McCaw said the current model of having 10,000 people on the residential Mifflin Street is not a sustainable model.

“We think it’s 100 percent environmental; it’s just a bad spot,” McCaw said. “We work with anybody and everybody to make it safe.”

He recommended an open public space, such as Warner Park, for future events, adding other colleges and universities host these events annually and make money off of them.

In general, Mifflin is simply costing Madison too much, McCaw said.

“We’re in those economic times where we just can’t afford this sort of thing anymore,” McCaw said, adding he is disturbed by having to convey this message. “I don’t think anyone is angry about it from the police side, it’s just one of those things that has to happen.”