First off, last weekend's Five Fest probably took the title of the wildest, most intense, and drunkest party in OU history, arguably any college in the history in the United States. There were numerous riots, full beer cans being thrown at the music guests and everyone around (including me), many couch/furniture burnings, students getting tasered, football player "security gaurds" getting in drunken brawls, lots of public sex (mainly in the woods), public nudity, endless public drug use, passed out students within miles all around, etc., etc., ETC.

 

There is a lot of discussion going on right now in Athens regarding both the actual event and the press coverage. The event always coincides with The Athens International Street Fair, but Five Fest greatly overshadowed the shutting down of Court Street to celebrate diversity. All the newspapers chose to feature Five Fest as their headline cover stories (as they should), and people are upset the street fair only got a small blurb, despite being the largest non-alcoholic event in the city every year.

 

Anyways, over 15,000 tickets were sold (and I'd estimate that was what attendance looked like), so it's basically become one of OU's largest parties. Some people at OU are worried the event gives our school a bad name (despite the fact it draws kids from schools all over the country and is hugely popular), and there are a lot of people upset over the way the city, county, and event organizers handled the mobs and riots. I honestly have never experienced anything like this in my life, and I've partied hard at OU. This was complete chaos and the hostility level was much higher than anything I've seen at OU before. It's amazing no one died. By the end of this event, you were completely covered in mud, bruised, maybe bloody, and certainly exhausted. For me, the highlight of the event was seeing my buddies in Downplay perform, and also seeing DJ Edski, a huge DJ from Hollywood. He said he had never exerpienced a crowd like OU before. Go figure...

 

This is a picture I took as I entered the muddy mess of complete debauchery and drunken chaos:

 

 

Five Fest draws crowd of more than 10,000

 

Students mud wrestle, riot, drink the day away

 

Published: Monday, May 19, 2008

Last Modified: Monday, May 19, 2008, 1:05:27am

 

Five Fest, the fifth in a series of annual outdoor fests, was marked by the same antics that draw students to the field year after year.  It’s not the actual music that makes people want to attend the fest; it’s the idea of just partying in a field with friends, said Will Strome, a senior journalism major.  “If there was an iPod connected to the speakers, people would come anyway,” Stome said, adding, “It’s the outdoor aura.”

 

Although the 15,000 ticket holders are happy to party at the Big Red Barn — about three miles from campus — they might not realize the months the organizing team puts into the fest each year.  Five Fest founder Dominic Petrozzi pays Brad Ervine well for using his cattle field, which Petrozzi cleans up, Ervine said. Petrozzi has coordinated the fest since his senior year at Ohio University as a sports industry/marketing major. This year, he started talking to vendors, sponsors and bands in February.

 

Five Fest organizers sorted through the 74 bands that applied for 12 available slots to perform. Many of the bands that applied to play at Five Fest heard about the event through Petrozzi’s record company, Industry Standard.  Petrozzi only advertises on Facebook, MySpace and the fest’s Web site, which are geared mostly toward potential ticket-buyers rather than vendors or bands.

 

MORE: http://www.thepost.ohiou.edu/Articles/News/2008/05/19/24615/

 

I was there representing ohio state with my buddies from the army that were in town.  Awesome time!

ps ive been tasered twice before and it doesnt hurt that bad.  so dont feel bad.

D-Dawg--the heir apparent to Jerry Springer

Anyways, over 15,000 tickets were sold (and I'd estimate that was what attendance looked like), so it's basically become one of OU's largest parties. Some people at OU are worried the event gives our school a bad name (despite the fact it draws kids from schools all over the country and is hugely popular), and there are a lot of people upset over the way the city, county, and event organizers handled the mobs and riots.

 

I have an article saved from the front page of the Plain Dealer's Metro section that was discussing this very thing, except the article was about Halloween instead of Five Fest (which sounds an awful lot like May Day, which I don't think is an event anymore).  I saved the article (well, actually my mom saved it) because the picture on the front page was of my friends and I in costume...luckily I didn't look too hammered ;)  I think the article was from 1997 or 1998.

 

The theme of this discussion (OU being deemed a party school even though for massive parties like this its more than just OU students, then handling of the situation by OU PD, APD, faculty, students, etc) has being going on well before I went to OU and will continue to go on well after you are gone...I wouldn't get caught up in it.  The tasers, rubber pellets, and cops on horses are nothing new in Athens, from Halloween, Homecoming, Palmerfest, May Day...even during the 2-3 years of the "time change riot"...these have been issues in Athens for quite some time...even May Day had the same problems with thousands of people trying to leave at once and only so many buses leaving the fairgrounds.

 

It just stems from not having much else to cover in Athens but what the students are up to (shocker - they're partying...)

shs96 what was your costume that year? My favorite of all time was somebody went as 10 ft tall empire state building complete with christmas lights in the windows. I have no idea how how he walked around on court street in it with out getting pushed over.

 

That being said I agree with SHS96, for OU this is business as usual. Big party, cops and drunk (generally out-of-town)students don't mix. I was there for the time change riots too (which incidently started the first year as Frat vs Frat fight within a bar that spilled out onto the street as the bars let out an hour early) and the one year my buddy took a rubber bullet just standing there, it left a deep purple bruise on his calf the size of a softball.

 

Ah, the good old days...

shs96 what was your costume that year? My favorite of all time was somebody went as 10 ft tall empire state building complete with christmas lights in the windows. I have no idea how how he walked around on court street in it with out getting pushed over.

 

My friend created essentially a push cart with a microwave on top.  The bottom of the microwave was cut out and someone sat on a turn table inside the push cart with only their head exposed inside the microwave.  You'd push a button, the microwave door would open, lights would flash, the turn table would start to turn, turning the person's head (body) around making it look like you were nuking someone's head (the guy inside the cart's face was painted, etc).  I was one of the "crazies" in white jumpsuits pushing the cart around. 

 

But I remember the Empire St Building Costume - that was a good one!

 

Five Fest replaced Derby Days, but is ten times larger. Everything at OU is larger today except Halloween, which has been about 20,000 to 25,000 people the last couple of years. The last big-time Halloween was in 2004 which was 25,000 to 30,000 people at peak. Palmer Fest is two times the size it used to be

 

Right, Derby Days, not May Day...maybe the non Greek people called it May Day.  Didn't Sigma Chi get kicked off campus?  I assume that's why it ended.

 

Anyway, I guess my point is, none of this story sounds new to me.  I've been back as recently as 2005 and buildings changed and businesses turned over, but it pretty much seemed like the same ole place.  Although I must admit, I wasn't there much in the spring so I suppose those festivals could have become bigger, I only attended a few of them.  Palmerfest was pretty big though, the one year I stayed for it was due to OAR and Red Wanting Blue playing on Saturday, among other bands...they drew a big crowd.  But I don't recall for sure how big Mill/High/Oak fest was...I would commute up to Put-in-Bay most weekends in May where I worked for the summer...Athens to PIB...didn't get any better...

C-Dawg, I think you should transfer schools. You clearly aren't very excited about attending OU and spend little time thinking about extracurricular life at the school.

I never really understood the whole police horse thing.  I didn't really ever see the horses accomplish anything officers on foot couldn't except of course occasionally biting or stepping on a hapless college student maybe or maybe not by accident.  Meanwhile some of you might remember the incident where the guy went for jail in 2002 or 2003 for simply taunting a police dog that was in the back of a cruiser parked on Court St.  The rationale was that the taunting caused the dog to go in such a frenzy that he hurt himself in the back of the cruiser.  Meanwhile Terrance Ross's killer is at large. 

 

Some of you might remember the infamous weekend in fall 2005 when the mounted officer broke his hand underneath his falling horse and had to go on medical leave for months.  He was one of the only cool officers in town, unlike Lushbaugh, that little tough-guy officer, etc.  But the police said he was chasing some students down a gravel driveway on Palmer St. and he fell in pursuit.  But someone I know saw the incident and said he was simply walking down 17 Palmer's gravel driveway (perhaps in pursuit, but not in *hot* pursuit).  I hated that the police exaggerated that and other incidents getting the OU administration worked up and causing them to pass stupid alcohol rules.         

 

Seriously, anyone remember Lushbaugh?  I had numerous run-ins with that dude, never for anything worth glancing at (noise violations -- okay, so the DZ house called on me?!) then he gets caught with the underaged girls down in the Rabbit Barn at the fairgrounds. 

 

 

Actually Time Change Riot 2003 was the time when I really saw them go nuts with the horses.  They charged and bit one guy on the opposite side of the street.  And it was OU's females throwing the beer bottles at them and inciting the males by flashing, etc., btw.  In fact the whole 2003 riot started when some chick ran out in the street and kissed some country guy in his pickup iddling in front of The Diner.   

I don't understand noise violations in college towns/college neighborhoods. I've been to so many parties that have been broken up by the police because some old couple in the neighborhood called them. It's always the same few people that call the police and complain. Don't live in a college neighborhood if you don't want to be around that atmosphere. There's plenty of other options. It's a lost cause anyway, because on saturday nights people are so loud just when they're walking down the street that it's inevitably going to be disruptive.

They break up parties here like crazy. Ive been hasseled by police over carrying energy drinks that apparently look like beer cans and running fast up the hill next to my house. It amazes me how this portion of Clifton Heights is probably 40 percent non-students. I can understand their concerns--I don't always like the noise but I only pay 240 a month for a d@mn reason! Non-students live in this neighborhood probably for the same reason--cheap rent close to downtown. If you don't like it, leave. That's my philosophy. Students get wasted on the weekends and when they get together in a house, it gets loud. That's life.

I saw someone get a severe beatdown in front of Papa Dinos last weekend. A police officer came outside and basically did nothing. I don't think they particularly care about what drunk college students do; they just respond to phone calls they get and obvious deviant behavior. Only thing that bothers me is drunk driving on weekends. I almost got ran over last weekend while I was crossing a street, this guy didn't stop at his stop sign, turned into me then slammed on his breaks. He leaned out of his car and said "dudddeee are you going to the kegger too?!"

>Dude, that sucks DZ called on you.

 

They didn't call on me, that's my point.  The cops can just show up and say someone called and they don't have to tell you who.  I remember some guys at 116 Lancaster who ended up doing serious community service, like 40 hours, for a noise violation.  The thing was when you were in court Judge Grimm would always sell the community service to the defendants as though it was going to be some great learning experience and even fun. 

 

 

>in Athens, drunk driving is very limited.

 

One of my friends got charged with OVI after having had just one beer.  The state trooper took him into the station and the breathalyser wasn't working.  He charged him with OVI anyway, he had to hire a lawyer and he was only successful in getting down to wreckless operation.  That meant 4 points on his license and about $5,000 down the drain in legal fees and higher insurance.  I myself was charged with OVI on my mountain bike down by Sonic on Stimson Ave. and similarly was only able to get it down to wreckless operation of a motor vehicle.  Nevermind I didn't even own a car and had a perfect driving record.  He was just suspicious because I looked like I was heading out past bong hill to chop down marijuana plants in the middle of the night and didn't buy my story that I lived on County Rd. 25 because I hadn't updated my driver's license.  Which I didn't think was too important considering I didn't have a car.  Anyway I was on probation for 2 years with 30 days suspended jail time thanks to that and it cost me about $3,000 in fines and legal fees.  My lawyer reviewed the tape and said it was a total joke...I was totally cooperative but the cop wrote down I was resisting arrest.  People who've never been in one of these situations would never believe it but the police really do fudge the paperwork and incite you into overreacting and causing a scene.       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

^^^About the police horses.  At the exit of five fest the mounted cops were really nice, i was pretty inebriated and went up to one particular officer with some lady friends of mine and he let us pose for pictures and do other retarded stuff.  Laid back nice guy, the police and authorities at OU are much party friendlier then we have at Ohio State by far.... hence my tasering experiences.