A total of five students attended the first MayFest 2011 joint general interest meeting held by Student Association and University Union on Thursday. 

The meeting was meant to get students involved in the planning process of MayFest 2011 by allowing them to provide input for the second annual event on Walnut Park this spring. 

Jenessa Nyasha, a sophomore psychology major who attended the meeting, said the only reason she knew about the meeting was because the event was posted on Facebook. 

An e-mail via Syracuse University News Services and an article published by The Daily Orange Tuesday also announced the meeting. 

According to the Facebook event, entitled ‘MayFest 2011 General Interest Meeting,’ 18 students said they would attend and 25 said they might attend. Aside from SA and UU members, only four freshmen and one sophomore attended. 

Despite the low turnout, neither organization expected many students to attend, because it is still early in the planning process. 

‘MayFest isn’t on everybody’s mind in October,’ said Neal Casey, SA Student Life Committee chair. 

There will be more meetings throughout the fall and spring semesters to gather student input, Casey said. 

SA and UU members will also begin meeting about once a month, starting Monday. During the spring semester, they will start meeting once or twice a week until the event, Casey said. 

Before he asked for student input, Casey briefly told the attendees the history of MayFest and how it came to be an event held on Walnut Park last year. 

MayFest, an SU event since 2005, started as an academic day for students in which classes were canceled. In 2007, students began to party on Euclid Avenue on the same day as the event. In 2009, university officials changed the name of MayFest to SU Showcase, and an event was held at the Women’s Building field, which received positive feedback because of free food and entertainment, Casey said. Students also partied on Euclid Avenue that year. 

Classes were reinstated on SU Showcase in October 2009, and SA began to meet with the administration immediately after the announcement in hopes of creating a day for students. In collaboration with the administration and UU, SA brought back MayFest and decided it would be an event held in Walnut Park. The event offered free beer for students over 21, free food and entertainment. 

‘The goal is to help alleviate — eventually eliminate — Euclid and move and turn MayFest into this event in Walnut Park,’ Casey said. ‘If you look at universities across the country, this is what they have. They don’t have the big disaster of Euclid. They have a well-sponsored, student-run event, which is the key thing here.’

Another goal for this year is to recreate last year’s event by taking feedback and turning it into positive changes to make the event more successful, he said. 

This year, SA and UU want students to be more involved with the planning process of the event. 

‘We need more student input in this committee,’ Casey said. 

There is a MayFest committee that helps plan the event, made up of students, administrators, Department of Public Safety, Syracuse police and others. 

Although there was a low turnout, students who came to the meeting have potential to become part of the committee, Casey said. 

Casey, UU President Andrew Beyda, and Dan Scorpio, SA’s promotions board chair, also told students they could become involved in planning MayFest by helping determine the entertainment and promotional features of the event. UU is responsible for booking the talent for the event, Beyda said. 

Beyda asked students who they would like to see perform. One student suggested Kid Cudi, but Beyda said he would be too expensive for the $20,000 budget. Cudi would be more like a Block Party artist, he said. Other students suggested Samuel Adams and mash-up artists.  

SA and UU are looking into feedback they have already received about adding seating and guest passes to the Walnut Park event. They are also looking into what else they could do, because students were asking what they were suppose to do at the event besides drink, eat and listen to music, Casey said.   

‘The last thing we wanted to do was over-program the event, because we wanted it to be that fun party, hanging out-type atmosphere,’ Casey said, ‘not a university sponsored event.’

lgleveil@syr.edu

Published on October 10, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Laurence: lgleveil@syr.edu | @lgleveille