It all started with one giant party.
Before Palmer Fest, Mill Fest and High Fest, students celebrated the end of the year out on the Mill Street intramural fields, boozing and jamming to music like students do at the current fests.
This began in 1978, when the drinking age was 18 and Ohio University assisted in paying for the fest — footing the alcohol tab.
The first Spring Fest was broken up into two six-hour days showcasing local bands and was intended to be the Athens version of Woodstock, according to a previous article in The Post.
The final Spring Fest in 1990 attracted only 800 people, resulting in a large financial loss for fest organizers, according to a previous article in The Post. Each Spring Fest following 1990 was a non-university-sponsored event. Many students referred to Spring Fest ’90 as “Spring Flop.”
“When the university passed their no-alcohol-on-campus policy, then obviously the popularity of Spring Fest decreased quickly,” Athens Police Chief Tom Pyle said. “They used to have beer gardens there and everything else at Spring Fest.”
Once that happened, the Palmer Fest event became more prevalent, Pyle said. While the first official Palmer Fest was held in 1991, the event had actually started years earlier as an after-hours party for Spring Fest.
“It involved practically everyone who lived on Palmer,” Pyle said. “They had porch parties in their backyards. Once Spring Fest dwindled away, then Palmer Fest became the main focus, but it was never in the street like it is now.”
Before the Palmer Place apartments were built, Palmer Fest used to take place in the backyards of the houses along Palmer Street, Pyle said.
“You could drive down Palmer Street back then, and you would never know there was a party going on unless you heard the bands playing,” Pyle said. “When all the landlords back there started building the apartments and building onto the houses, they took up all that space; that’s when the event moved out onto the front yards, and that’s when it became problematic for us.”
Palmer Fest was the first block party to become popular among students. Eventually, High Fest and Mill Fest followed in the early 2000s, Pyle said.
“Mill Fest actually started as Monopoly Fest,” Pyle said. “They had different houses titled avenues and parkways, like the game Monopoly. The idea was to get cards or hotels from each of the residences by drinking a beer at each house. I believe Hasbro actually sent people down there a cease and desist order for copyright infringement.”
Pyle added that this year’s Mill Fest was the largest he had ever seen, but Palmer Fest is renowned for having the rowdiest reputation.
“The Palmer event has given us the problems,” Assistant Safety Service Director Ron Lucas said. “High Fest is laid back, Mill is a big geographic area, and we haven’t seen a lot of violent behavior at those fests. Palmer has the stigma.”
Fires and bottle throwing have seemingly become synonymous with the fests. The city had even received a lawsuit over someone being hit in the eye with a water balloon slingshot, Mayor Paul Wiehl said.
“Everyone thinks these things are benign, but hey, that’s a chunk of water,” Wiehl said. “The same thing with throwing bottles and cans.”
During the 2010 and 2011 spring fest seasons, about 75 Ohio University students were expelled because of incidents stemming from the events, many of which occurred at Palmer Fest, said Becky Watts, then-chief of staff for OU President Roderick McDavis.
“These behaviors were so egregious that the students, even after going through the process, still had to be expelled,” Watts said. “We’re working hard to turn away from disruptive and disrespectful behaviors. We need a way to have students and community members come together with events that are fun, reasonable and safe.”
as299810@ohiou.edu
az346610@ohiou.edu
