As Revelry’s student organizers, we’ll say it until we are blue in the face: This is not an anti-Mifflin party or an administrator-driven event. There needn’t be tension between Revelry’s existence and Mifflin’s, unless you want there to be. Go to one, both, neither; it’s a free country.
Some of the feedback we’ve received runs something along these lines: “Why are you guys serving alcohol or allowing re-entry (both policies that student planners fought hard for) if you’re trying to prevent people from going to Mifflin”? Maybe, just maybe, we’re observing those policies because that isn’t the goal here.
Here is some backstory. The idea behind Revelry started out as a conversation between my friend and I on the Terrace in late summer. UW, unlike many of our peer institutions, doesn’t have a big, end-of-the-year music festival like Northwestern’s Dillo Day or Hey Day at UPenn. What we have is the Mifflin Street Block party, which 5,000 of our 42,000 student body attended last year.
At Mifflin 2012, I stood on my balcony, Spotted Cow in hand, and watched a few thousand people try to get their drank on and get arrested in droves. From my perspective, and the perspective of a lot of people I talked to, it was incredibly lame. Because of all that, a group of students began to talk about what it would take to create, over a multi-year effort, a huge spring music festival that ended up the year with a bang.
We dreamed big: an open-air daytime bash with headliners of the ilk of Frank Ocean or Kid Cudi. And it became apparent to us that in order to get the kind of space or funding to make this happen in the short or long term, we needed considerable support. And so we went to individual divisions, departments and private sponsors to amass a pool of funding to make this happen.
Interim Chancellor David Ward did not sit down and write us a large check. The various entities and divisions that chose to support Revelry did so for different reasons – and some of them took a lot of persuading. Some wanted to encourage a positive, ambitious student-planned event, and some wanted to invest in Madison’s arts scene. Yes, some believed that we as a university could do better than Mifflin and wanted to support a pilot for trying a different way to celebrate the year’s end.
Because of the time it took to clear mountains of red tape and gather enough funding to make this event feasible, we had to start booking a festival in less than four months that our promoter told us ideally should have started 10 months ago.
Considering that fact, I think we ended up with an incredibly strong lineup for the ticket price being offered, given how complicated and difficult booking huge talent is. Revelry is in its first year – if the only criterion you’re judging our lineup by is the presence of major festival talent, that’s a little harsh.
What you get for less than the price of two Ian’s Pizza slices is, among other things, five great national acts that are prominently featured at Pitchfork, SXSW and Lollapalooza. If Revelry this year is a success, it will get bigger and better with time.
On a wholly personal note, as someone who has been to it many times, I do think we can do better than Mifflin in its current incarnation. For me, the origin and idea of Mifflin is super appealing: an open-air block party that is organic, anti-establishment and all about having fun. Work hard, play hard has shaped my Badger experience; fishbowls at Wandos were as much a part of it as a well-rounded r?sum? or good grades (ignore this, future employers).
But the reality of the last few years of the block party is sobering: sexual assaults in the double digits both years, a violent stabbing and minority students being called slurs and disrespected. Because Mifflin happens primarily on private residences, it is impossible to ensure that it is a safe event.
As someone who has been sexually assaulted, it hurts to even think about what it must have been for those individuals to go through what they did, the week before finals, no less. You can deride Revelry as a waste of money, and you are entitled to your opinion, but I put it to you that someone paid for your fun at Mifflin, whether it was the house that got written up for $25,000 in fines, the $200,000 the City dropped on policing it or the student who spent five weeks in a hospital after Mifflin 2011. Go on, call me a fun-killer. I dare you.
I put it to you that Revelry is the best of all possible worlds. It gives the university, which gets considerable flack for “allowing Mifflin to happen,” the chance to say that they’re supporting something positive and safer. It is driven by students trying to provide a service for their peers. As a student, this is how I see it: Revelry is about having the ability to walk more than three feet while holding my beer, to listen to great live music, to hang out with my friends in the sunshine without worrying about getting a $400 ticket. It’s about having things I wish I could have on Mifflin but can’t.
I hope that you enjoy the end of the year, at Mifflin, at your friend’s apartment, at Revelry or any combination of the three, in a manner that respects our fellow Badgers, sexual safety and all that is great about what our school stands for.
May the Fourth be with you, however you choose to celebrate it.
Sarah Mathews ([email protected]) is the Revelry Chief Executive. She is also President of the Wisconsin Union .
