Task Force Recommendation for VEISHEA

[longtimeclone]

That's my point... All ISU has done to "change" VEISHEA over the years is push the drinking and partying to house parties in an uncontrolled environment. If the State Fair, for example, went dry, you would probably see more parties in homes on the east side, although probably not near as many as a college campus ( I agree, it's apples to oranges).

Find an effective way to bring the drinking back into a controlled environment for VEISHEA, and I think you solve quite a few problems.

I don't think so. Given that the bars are pretty crazy during VEISHEA and you have to be 21 to get in there will always be house parties going on. I am not sure how you can change that. Even if you turned Welch into a giant beer garden, you have only created a very large group that cannot probably be contained by the police which is what I think we are trying to avoid.

Why do you think the changes were made to the concerts on campus? Because there were too many people going than could be controlled by the police so they moved the concerts and started to do wrist bands to limit the number. I think these sucked, but at the same time I was at the concerts the year before and knew it was probably for the best to prevent something from happening.

 

[chuckd4735]

I don't think so. Given that the bars are pretty crazy during VEISHEA and you have to be 21 to get in there will always be house parties going on. I am not sure how you can change that. Even if you turned Welch into a giant beer garden, you have only created a very large group that cannot probably be contained by the police which is what I think we are trying to avoid.

Why do you think the changes were made to the concerts on campus? Because there were too many people going than could be controlled by the police so they moved the concerts and started to do wrist bands to limit the number. I think these sucked, but at the same time I was at the concerts the year before and knew it was probably for the best to prevent something from happening.

Yeah cant completely stop the house parties, but you can find ways to decrease the numbers of house parties. I also disagree with your notion that a large group in a beer garden cannot be contained by police. There are examples of where this is able to be achieved all over the country. ISU/Ames is simply afraid to try.

 

[Mr Janny]

Yeah cant completely stop the house parties, but you can find ways to decrease the numbers of house parties. I also disagree with your notion that a large group in a beer garden cannot be contained by police. There are examples of where this is able to be achieved all over the country. ISU/Ames is simply afraid to try.

Why should they try any more than they already have? Why is it so horrible to think that a city of 50,000 people possibly might not want to deal with a massive beer garden, even if they were capable? To an average Ames citizen, what exactly is so special about VEISHEA? What makes it indispensable?

 

[chuckd4735]

Why should they try any more than they already have? Why is it so horrible to think that a city of 50,000 people possibly might not want to deal with a massive beer garden, even if they were capable? To an average Ames citizen, what exactly is so special about VEISHEA? What makes it indispensable?

Because the event itself does a ton of good for various departments/clubs/etc. at ISU, and it carries ALOT of cool tradition. Sure there are some black eyes, but its a shame that those black eyes completely negate all the good that VEISHEA is/does. You're obviously focusing in on the little bad and failing to see all the good, as are most of the student hating citizens in Ames.

 

[Tornado man]

Unfortunately, this ignorant opinion is what is leading VEISHEA to it's death. I feel sorry for those who don't see the good in VEISHEA. Drunken parties are a part of a lot of good and successful events/celebrations/festivals/fairs. It can be done successfully with VEISHEA, it's just that no one wants to try things that would actually work.

I just read the task force's "report" in full - what a primitive, academic, superficial document. Even quoted students' tweets such as "if you're not drunk during Veishea, you're doing it wrong" as a way to describe the event as a whole. Wow. Never even bothered to address the root causes of the drinking and altercations with police...

 

[Mr Janny]

Because the event itself does a ton of good for various departments/clubs/etc. at ISU, and it carries ALOT of cool tradition. Sure there are some black eyes, but its a shame that those black eyes completely negate all the good that VEISHEA is/does. You're obviously focusing in on the little bad and failing to see all the good, as are most of the student hating citizens in Ames.

What good? You gave an incredibly vague description of it being good for various departments/clubs/etc. Wonderful. So, some arbitrarily good, yet apparently un-describable benefits to some campus groups are worth the extra police on duty, the riots, the destruction, the bad PR, etc. And you still haven't answered what an Ames resident gets out of it? Wait, let me guess. Pies, right?

Sorry, it's not enough. "Cool tradition" is not a reason to keep it around. Not after what the event has become.

 

[RubyClone]

Because the event itself does a ton of good for various departments/clubs/etc. at ISU, and it carries ALOT of cool tradition. Sure there are some black eyes, but its a shame that those black eyes completely negate all the good that VEISHEA is/does. You're obviously focusing in on the little bad and failing to see all the good, as are most of the student hating citizens in Ames.

Problem is that VEISHEA carried on for what? 60 years without incident. The last 20-30 have been marred with near annual issues. Maybe not full blown riots or multiple deaths. But there is always something. What do you think the police blotter looked like in the 40's, 50's or even 60's. They probably didn't even add up to what last year had.

ISU and Ames have tried. They were trying when I was in school in the early 90's during two of the more major disturbances. They tried in the early '00s when they effectively cancelled it, or made it dry(ish). The task force report lays out the issues pretty clearly, and I thought well.

People who don't want to accept the fact that the tone around VEISHEA has completely changed, simply have their head in the sand. It has become a culture of a drunkfest. Not much more. I did. And I'm far from alone on that.

I'm not exactly pleased at the prospect that it may end. But the simple fact is that it's in the students' hands and the past generation or two has proven they're not up to the task

What are these other traditions we're so concerned about losing? The parade? The week long sports tourneys? or the benders?

 

[Mr Janny]

I just read the task force's "report" in full - what a primitive, academic, superficial document. Even quoted students' tweets such as "if you're not drunk during Veishea, you're doing it wrong" as a way to describe the event as a whole. Wow. Never even bothered to address the root causes of the drinking and altercations with police...

Why is that so outlandish? One of the main arguments against VEISHEA is that it's seen as primarily a drunken party. Showing examples of how students think exactly that seems to be a good way to prove that.

 

[CYKOFAN]

I think it's going to be harder to kill "Veishea" than some think. I quote veishea because I am talking only about the student drunk fest. With the way social media is these days (look how far it's come since 2004) I fully expect there to be some sort of "unofficial veishea". Takes one person to get something like that rolling on twitter and it's like veishea was never gone. There will still be a massive drunk fest in ames Iowa come springtime. Maybe not a whole week, but definitely a weekend.

Probably a pretty good chance of this happening and campus security and Ames P.D. being even less prepared to handle it as it may be a more spontaneous event. So we could have the out of control parties, police even less prepared to handle them, and not even have Veishea. Some have complained about the expense of beefing up security but I can't believe the city of Ames wouldn't be willing to do this for all the money that Veishea brings to the Ames community. And somebody called ending Veishea a courageous decision? I guess if courageous means cowing down to the lawbreakers and letting them end one of ISU's longest and greatest traditions.

 

[ISUME]

I think it's going to be harder to kill "Veishea" than some think. I quote veishea because I am talking only about the student drunk fest. With the way social media is these days (look how far it's come since 2004) I fully expect there to be some sort of "unofficial veishea". Takes one person to get something like that rolling on twitter and it's like veishea was never gone. There will still be a massive drunk fest in ames Iowa come springtime. Maybe not a whole week, but definitely a weekend.

Many colleges have an event called Unofficial to celebrate St Patrick's day. Just an excuse for everyone to go to the bars early on a saturday and get drunk. It won't be very hard to apply this concept to Iowa State.

 

[longtimeclone]

Yeah cant completely stop the house parties, but you can find ways to decrease the numbers of house parties. I also disagree with your notion that a large group in a beer garden cannot be contained by police. There are examples of where this is able to be achieved all over the country. ISU/Ames is simply afraid to try.

So you think it is possible to have a beer garden but yet think the ones that would be responsible of policing it are afraid? I think they have weighed the consequences and know the negatives heavily outweigh the positives. Also how does a massive beer garden contribute to the tradition of VEISHEA? It does help the businesses on Welch but if anything it seems to only add more to the idea that it is a huge dunkfest.

 

[jbhtexas]

Some have complained about the expense of beefing up security but I can't believe the city of Ames wouldn't be willing to do this for all the money that Veishea brings to the Ames community.

Perhaps this vast economic benefit to Ames is mythical, and the businesses (except for a few bars) realize it...

 

[Farnsworth]

Someone should PM New Orleans to tell them that Mardi Gras is worthless.

 

[Nuts4Cy]

Because the event itself does a ton of good for various departments/clubs/etc. at ISU, and it carries ALOT of cool tradition. Sure there are some black eyes, but its a shame that those black eyes completely negate all the good that VEISHEA is/does. You're obviously focusing in on the little bad and failing to see all the good, as are most of the student hating citizens in Ames.

ISU alumni and city of Ames resident, and I say end it. The city needs to be known for it's clean water and not riots.

 

[CycloneErik]

Why should they try any more than they already have? Why is it so horrible to think that a city of 50,000 people possibly might not want to deal with a massive beer garden, even if they were capable? To an average Ames citizen, what exactly is so special about VEISHEA? What makes it indispensable?

There's the special feeling of knowing that the riot could happen, or some friends of mine note that special feeling of picking up extra booze containers around their home that students leave around.

There's also that special feeling of knowing that you're together with much of the town listening to the police scanner for the only time of the year.

Can't get those feelings back.

 

[chuckd4735]

What good? You gave an incredibly vague description of it being good for various departments/clubs/etc. Wonderful. So, some arbitrarily good, yet apparently un-describable benefits to some campus groups are worth the extra police on duty, the riots, the destruction, the bad PR, etc. And you still haven't answered what an Ames resident gets out of it? Wait, let me guess. Pies, right?

Sorry, it's not enough. "Cool tradition" is not a reason to keep it around. Not after what the event has become.

Are you seriously that naive to not know the financial benefit that VEISHEA plays to a lot of these campus groups? Some of these groups rely on VEISHEA as their main source of fundraising. I don't have the details on any of that, but I guess I figured that was pretty common knowledge. I wont argue that the benefits have to be weighed against the impacts; my point is that I don't think ISU/Ames has done a good job at trying to mitigate the impacts. They may think they have, but most everyone knew the "changes" that have been made in the past were going to do nothing to curb the negative effects.

You have to learn that big events like this are going to involve drinking. You cant stop it, you can only contain it. If you want the "party" to stop, the only method is to cancel VEISHEA. If you want to still have the benefits of VESIHEA, and try to get a better control on the party, there are definitely alternatives that could be explored. This task force has chosen to get rid of the party while failing to touch on the negative effects this will have on many organizations, and that is sad. I'm not arguing that we have a problem here; that much is obvious and I think we can all agree. I'm just arguing that there are other alternatives that could be effective and have yet to be explored.

And I'm not sure why we should be concerned as to what the citizens of Ames get out of this. We should be more concerned about what ISU students, faculty and alumni get out of it.

 

[Wesley]

What good? You gave an incredibly vague description of it being good for various departments/clubs/etc. Wonderful. So, some arbitrarily good, yet apparently un-describable benefits to some campus groups are worth the extra police on duty, the riots, the destruction, the bad PR, etc. And you still haven't answered what an Ames resident gets out of it? Wait, let me guess. Pies, right?

Sorry, it's not enough. "Cool tradition" is not a reason to keep it around. Not after what the event has become.

Frankly, VESIHA was one of the few noteworthy national things about ISU that set it apart. The next best might have been Hilton magic and MBB. Correct me if I missed something else.

 

[Farnsworth]

Let's get rid of football. All people do is show up and drink, i mean they can't even find their way back to the stadium after halftime in a timely matter. For god sakes, we have more people in the tailgate lot than in the stadium!

 

[Farnsworth]

Frankly, VESIHA was one of the few noteworthy national things about ISU that set it apart. The next best might have been Hilton magic and MBB. Correct me if I missed something else.

Here, let me respond for Janny.

but but but but it's only nationally known for it's out of control parties and riots.

 

[Angie]

Here, let me respond for Janny.

but but but but it's only nationally known for it's out of control parties and riots.

The pro-VEISHEA group has been pointing out in this entire thread that VEISHEA isn't really all that well known or unique, lots of other schools do similar things and they're more successful. I'd say that response is appropriate here.