Each spring, thousands of students descend upon Athens for a series of six spring festivals that land hundreds in handcuffs and helped earn Ohio University its controversial title as the nation’s number one party school last year.
For years, streets with high numbers of students living off-campus — on Palmer, High, Oak and Mill and in the Palmer Place apartments — have hosted spring fests featuring day-long drinking games, copious amounts of alcohol and — occasionally — fires.
In April, Palmer Fest — the largest of the street fests — was cut short after a house fire broke out at 7 p.m. at 11 Palmer St. After a riot zone was declared, fest-goers were evacuated from the area and the fire was determined to be arson.
Student arrests are not uncommon during fest season. Approximately 353 partiers were in handcuffs by the end of the 2012 fest season. Of those arrests, 83 percent of the arrests were a result of underage drinking, and undercover agents of the Ohio Investigative Unit made about 80 percent of the arrests.
While each street fest is nothing short of the party of a lifetime, students look forward to the final party of the year — Number Fest — as the last hurrah before summer break.
Each year at Number Fest, various DJs and critically acclaimed artists perform for the crowd at an off-campus field attracting thousands of partygoers.
Approximately 15,000 people attended May’s 9Fest, which included performers Chip Tha Ripper, Timeflies and 12th Planet.
In addition, the entire layout of OU’s fest season will be altered due to the switch to the semester system.
In the past, every fest occurred within a ten-week period during Spring Quarter. Now, fests will be making fall appearances, while others will remain in the spring.
The date for 10Fest is scheduled to be in early Septemberas early as late August, said executive producer and founder of the Number Fests Dominic Petrozzi.
“We wanted to change the usual spring date due to the change of quarters to semesters,” Petrozzi said. “It’s also the state’s bicentennial and what better way to celebrate that than have two epic parties in one year?”
az346610@ohiou.edu
