Was it worth it?

This year’s Spring Bacchanal was doomed to mediocrity from the start. Henry Litwhiler explores why.

Of over 10,000 undergraduate students at Columbia, a total of 6,000 could have been given legitimate access to this year’s Bacchanal. Of those 6,000 spots, perhaps 5,000 were actually reserved by students, and fewer than 3,000 of them were present at any time during Big Sean’s headliner act. The result was an event that lacked any vestige of coherence or community, monopolized upwards of ten hours and a good slice of campus for the enjoyment of the few and the quiet inebriation of the many, and was more a showcase of the toxicity of campus culture than the ability of Columbia students to come together in a day of carefree enjoyment.

A False Start

In the weeks and months after Bacchanal 2014, members of the Bacchanal planning committee coordinated with the Activities Board (ABC), the undergraduate student councils, and the administration’s Office of Student Engagement (OSE) in an effort to host the first ever Fall Bacchanal. These efforts came to fruition on May 15th, when the OSE approved the event and reserved Low Plaza for September 14th. Over the next two months, the Bacchanal Planning Committee signed contracts with three performers, receiving approval for each from “administrators in the Office of Student Engagement.”

Three weeks after OSE approved the final performer’s contract, Bacchanal Co-President Ben Kornick was informed by OSE and Student Life that the four undergraduate deans had met and decided to cancel the event. A press release published by Bacchanal after the event’s cancellation says that the deans had vaguely cited concerns about binge drinking and sexual assault, though the deans would later rather dubiously try to distance themselves from the latter.

A tug-of-war ensued between various student organizations and the deans’ offices, with much of the dialogue centering around the $55,000 in cancellation fees that would be incurred by breaking the performers’ contracts. ABC, CCSC, GSSC, SGA, ESC, and a plethora of other alphabet soup student organizations suggested changes in event structure and the imposition of various safeguards, but on August 8th the undergraduate deans told the Bacchanal board that the cancellation was final and that, further, Spring Bacchanal was being placed under review. The only consolation was that the deans themselves would come up with the $55,000, sparing ABC et al. the financial consequences.

The move was almost universally panned by students and sexual assault advocacy groups alike. The Coalition Against Sexual Violence said in a statement released shortly after the decision went public that “sexual violence is prevalent throughout the year and will happen in Columbia residence halls, buildings and events whether or not this event takes place.” Individual students likewise took to social media, Bwog’s comments section, and the Spectator op-ed pages to voice their disapproval of the cancellation.

All hopes that the administration had concluded or at least tapered their War on Fun were dashed with the deans’ joint remark in a famously incoherent press release that, during September, “students are still settling into their coursework, which, of course, is the primary reason that they are at Columbia,” and that this “settling” justified the cancellation of a single day of community and relaxation. (The same press release claimed that Fall Bacchanal’s cancellation was not related to sexual assault, a statement many considered dubious.)

Communication Failures

The joint ABC-Bacchanal-CCSC-ESC-SGA-SGB-GSSC-GBB response to Fall Bacchanal’s cancellation focused on the mixed signals and poor communication emanating from various arms of the administration:

Had the deans raised their concerns with the Bacchanal committee and the four councils earlier in the process, we could have worked together to find solutions to all concerns. Instead, approval was granted and then revoked, without consultation with any students involved. It is our sincere hope that this will be an impetus for change; we believe students should have direct and open communication with decision-makers. We also believe that $55,000 is too steep a price to pay for miscommunication within the administration, and it is our hope that future decisions — including the approval of the annual Spring Bacchanal concert — will be conducted in collaboration with student groups.

The following months would see a parallel (and costly) failure of communication between ABC—the group responsible for allocating student life fees to campus organizations—and Bacchanal organizers. According to ABC’s 2014-2015 allocation spreadsheet (made public in February of this year), Bacchanal requested $175,000 in funding and received $106,000 pending the success or failure of Fall Bacchanal. Since the undergraduate deans agreed to cover the cancellation fees of the aborted fall concert, the full $106,000 remained allocated for the spring concert, as intended.

What Bacchanal failed to mention at the time of its funding allocation was that it would be selling $28,000 in tickets. A press release distributed by ABC after the ticket price announcement described this move as “an improper solicitation of funds,” making it abundantly clear that Bacchanal hadn’t informed ABC—or, for that matter, any other student organization—at any point of its intention to collect funding above what the Board considered necessary.

ABC’s response was initially to refund and redistribute the tickets. Ultimately, in an effort to avoid still more confusion, the decision was made to refund but not to redistribute the tickets and to free up an additional 2,300 tickets at no direct cost to students. The various undergraduate student councils, however, have been pressured into contributing tens of thousands of dollars to covering Bacchanal’s budget gaps, and ABC has had to front in the vicinity of $30,000.

As shady as all of this might strike the casual observer, this is not a story of malice or of intrigue but of sheer incompetence. Had Bacchanal coordinated with the undergraduate student councils and ABC (as they ultimately had to) to free up adequate funds for “repairs, additional speakers, and added security,” the confusion, ill-will, and waste of the past month might have been avoided. There is no reason to suspect deception when misestimation and miscommunication will do.

Musical Monoculture

It’s possible that the chaos and bitterness of the leadup to Saturday’s concert might have been forgotten in the throes of musical ecstasy brought on by Raury, Brenmar, and Big Sean, that even the prospect of a good musical performance might have soothed the class disputes and general incoherence surrounding the event’s organization.

Unfortunately, Bacchanal selected Raury, Brenmar, and Big Sean. Rap is great, many students are Big Sean fans, and it would be impossible to please everyone on campus with any three acts. That said, let’s take a gander at the past eight years’ performers:

• 2008: Grizzly Bear, The National
• 2009: Vampire Weekend, Talib Kweli
• 2010: Wiz Khalifah, Ghostface Killah
• 2011: Snoop Dogg, Das Racist
• 2012: Big Gigantic, Curren$y, Wavves
• 2013: Macklemore, Flosstradamus
• 2014: Lupe Fiasco, The Chainsmokers, Flaxo
• 2015: Big Sean, Raury, Brenmar

Notice any patterns? For starters, there’s the standard complaint: nearly every single non-student act in recent history has been a rapper or DJ. Partially as a result of this—hip hop and electronica have notoriously poor female representation—and partially for reasons we can only grasp at, every single performer has been male.

Penn’s Spring Fling, often the subject of comparison with Bacchanal, has managed to field a female performer for the past two years and will do so again this month. Yale, Harvard, Brown, and Cornell have all likewise managed to attract at least a few female performers over the past few years. This is at least partially because the organizers of other Ivy League schools’ spring concerts aren’t afraid to properly diversify away from rappers and DJs, so if the reason for this apparent bias isn’t sexism per se, it’s narrow musical tastes. Whatever the case, attendees of Bacchanal ought to have been treated to more variation of one sort or both.

Administrative Pressure

Yet for all the frustration felt by students towards the Bacchanal planning committee and for all the annoyance at the selection of yet another male rapper, the greatest burden on this weekend’s concert was the Columbia administration. The undergraduate deans, by failing to adequately communicate their reservations about hosting Fall Bacchanal and to listen to proposed fixes for the event, set the tone for Spring Bacchanal before the academic year had even begun. Their message was clear: they will sacrifice a lot of community fun for a little order, and they will do so without dialogue or advance notice.

And so even when the deans approved Spring Bacchanal, they did so in the most provisional way possible. As Student Body President Peter Bailinson put it in his pre-Bacchanal email:

When they write that “inappropriate behavior and activities on campus this weekend could have an impact on our ability to host large-scale concerts in the future,” they are not bluffing. Whether or not this is the end of Bacchanal in its present form will be evaluated tomorrow.

No amount of “but have a great time!” could erase the prospect hanging over our heads. “Enjoy yourselves, but one slip-up and you’re done for good” will dampen the mood of even someone planning a quiet day of friends and relaxation.

“A quiet day of friends and relaxation,” incidentally, also made its way onto the deans’ chopping block. After the 4,000 tickets were sold out in under a day—before many students were even aware that tickets were being made available—a Facebook event, “UNOFFICIAL BACCHANAL FOR THE UNINVITED,” started to gain traction. The event proposed that students who were unable to get tickets could instead lounge on the lawns of North Campus and listen to music on a communal internet radio station. By April 1st, over 3,000 people had signed up for the event.

On April 2nd, one of the event’s admins, Dustin Tran (SEAS ‘17), posted a message to the group saying that the deans had taken exception to the gathering:

Public Safety at Columbia found out about this event and informed several of the Deans. We had a meeting with them and they made it very clear to us that all liability for the event falls on our shoulders. They made it clear that we will be held legally and financially accountable of other’s misconduct regardless of whether we cancel the event, and quite possibly face expulsion. They strongly suggested we cancel the event.

We voiced our concerns on the effectiveness of cancelling this event at such a late date, nor can we prevent students from peacefully assembling on an open campus. We believe, and we told them, that the more responsible solution is to allow this event to continue alongside Bacchanal. We believe that you all deserve to celebrate a day that brings the community together.

The next day, in the deans’ general pre-Bacchanal “make my day” email, they connected misbehavior at the unofficial Bacchanal to the future of actual Bacchanal:

We understand that some students are planning an “unofficial Bacchanal” concert on the Pupin Quad and, possibly, on other open areas of campus. We expect all students to behave responsibly, whether at Bacchanal or elsewhere; inappropriate behavior and activities on campus this weekend could have an impact on our ability to host large-scale concerts in the future.

The deans saw both Bacchanal-as-usual and a public gathering of students listening to music as threats to campus order and, presumably, to the reputation of the University. What they could not regulate, they wanted banned; those students they couldn’t corral, they wanted out of sight. What did the deans expect the 4,000-odd undergrads without Bacchanal tickets to do, if not enjoy the spring weather with their friends? Slink from dingy rager to dingy rager? Hole up in Butler and ignore the festivities? It boggles the mind to consider what the deans thought they could accomplish by pushing students out of public spaces.

Even for those who intended to follow the administration-prescribed Bacchanal itinerary—a hearty breakfast at Ferris or at one of the food stations, an hour in line to get wristband, some quiet time with friends, and then five-plus hours on Low Plaza watching the concert—the deans’ patronizing messages and obsessive concern with not only the behavior but the very location of students set a grim tone. Sympathy for the administration’s desire to ensure the smooth functioning of campus must be constrained by reason; there’s at least a fuzzy difference between caution and paranoia.

Worth

When all is said and done, various student organizations will have spent upwards of $150,000 on Bacchanal. Did our student performers, Brenmar, Raury, and Big Sean deliver on the investment? Might we, as a student body, have gotten more enjoyment out of a lower-key event featuring Liberty Styles, Trill Mah, and fifteen thousand HamDel sandwiches? Would it have been better to have avoided the bile and turmoil of the past few months by opting for a more inclusive event? That will be for future Bacchanal committees to decide, as much as any decision is truly theirs in this administrative environment.

The concert itself went off without a hitch—administrators and student leaders alike can and will congratulate themselves for that. Like many of us, they’ll brush past the messy runup, the exclusivity, the (for many, quite literally) unmemorable performances, and the weak turnout. They’ll focus on the unexpectedly nice weather, on the absence of any headline-making disasters, and on the hundreds of pictures of raised hands and Big Sean.

Plenty of people had fun at Bacchanal. Most probably had fun in spite of the event itself, but a good mass enjoyed themselves as they drunkenly pressed against hundreds of their closest friends. It’s left for the rest of us to wonder, $150,000 and an unquantifiable load of bitterness later: was it worth it?

A previous version of this article stated that 1,000 students were in attendance during Big Sean’s performance. The Bacchanal Board has informed us that public safety counted about 3,000 students at that time. We regret the error.