JumBonnaroo, a three-night music festival and fundraiser for Relay For Life, took place last weekend in spite of an Interfraternity Council (IFC) ban on all Greek life social events for that weekend.
According to IFC President Evan Cover, the IFC instituted the ban in light of numerous alcohol-related transports the weekend leading up to JumBonnaroo at both Greek and non-Greek parties.
"We really felt that we needed to step back, that we needed a week to cool down, reassess what happened that particular week," Cover, a senior, said.
Cover said he contacted every house that was planning on having an event last weekend and asked them to cancel, which they then did. According to Cover, the topic of JumBonnaroo was more difficult because of the huge organizational effort the event planners had made.
Ben Silver, special events co-chair for Relay For Life at Tufts, said that by the time he received the call on Wednesday night to cancel the event, months of planning had been put into the fundraiser and several hundred tickets had already been sold.
"They had called to tell me that they were canceling all Greek social events and JumBonnaroo was a Greek social event," Silver, a junior, said. "It was just a bad week last week, so to save Greek life from any major changes they put a hold on all Greek events and I was really exasperated at that point."
Silver suggested to Cover that they make JumBonnaroo a dry event so they could avoid canceling or rescheduling the event, neither of which were viable options, according to Silver.
Cover then informed the fraternities scheduled to hold the events -- Zeta Psi (Zeta) on Thursday, Sigma Phi Epsilon (Sig Ep) on Friday and Theta Delta Chi (123) on Saturday -- that they could still host the fundraiser on the condition that it was a dry event.
According to Silver, he pitched the idea of a dry event to the presidents of Zeta and 123 --Jeffrey Straus and Harry Woods, respectively -- and both said they did not want to do a dry event.
"Their reasons were sort of shaky. I personally believe it’s just because they don’t want to throw a party where they can’t serve alcohol," Silver said. "They tried to make the case to me that it was too much of a risk to have ... one drunk person in the house or talking to the cops, which could ruin things, but a dry event would only help negate that risk."
"Because of the unfortunate number of students hospitalized at other houses last week, we did not feel comfortable undertaking the amount of inherent risk that comes with hosting a party. Despite the option of having a dry party, we felt like there were too many factors that were out of our control," Zeta representatives informed the Daily in an e-mail.
They added that Zeta consistently looks for ways to support charity and their decision did not reflect any lack of commitment to philanthropy on their part.
Representatives of 123 provided similar reasoning behind their decision to cancel their Saturday night concert.
"JumBonnaroo is a cause that we, as a brotherhood, feel passionate about supporting," representatives of 123 said in a statement to the Daily. "We are excited about supporting Relay For Life this spring. However, the entire Greek community was advised to not hold a party this Saturday. In light of recent campus wide events, we thought it would be best not to hold a party in any sense."
123 said they appreciated the efforts other fraternities made to make sure JumBonaroo was able to go on and that they hoped to support the cause in the future.
Silver said that Sig Ep, of which he is a member, decided to continue to host the event.
Sig Ep President Shawn Patterson said he was willing to continue to host the fundraiser because his fraternity’s intentions had remained unchanged, the event had already been planned and Relay for Life remained supportive of the event despite other venues dropping out.
"I guess I can’t really say why the other venues dropped, but it was really important to us to be respectful of the musicians who offered to donate their time or their talent to this cause where none of them as far as I know were working for payment," he said.
Patterson also said it was important to him to show that in light of the IFC decision, Greek life could still provide a social space that was both fun and safe.
Cover, a brother of ATO of Massachusetts (ATO), suggested that Thursday night’s event be moved from Zeta to ATO.
Pierre du Pont, president of ATO, said that he was asked on Wednesday night to host the event the following night. Having hosted JumBonnaroo several times in the past, du Pont agreed to have ATO host it again in spite of the late notice.
"With the late notice, if it weren’t a dry party we wouldn’t have agreed to host it because we need at least a few days to prepare to host a ‘regular' party," he said.
Saturday night’s event was moved from 123 to Delta Upsilon (DU), DU President Matt Cahill said.
According to Silver, Cahill had emailed him before the IFC decision to offer DU’s assistance with whatever was needed to prepare for the event.
"While I got a call from Zeta, I opened my email and I got an email from the DU president letting me know that they’re off whatever hold that they had on throwing parties," Silver said. "It was just funny ... they didn’t know it was happening this weekend, so I called them up and they agreed to host the event which was a huge life saver."
Cahill said the event was very successful and well-attended.
"[The] place was packed," Cahill said. "I think part of that is because of the draw of live music ... Market Basket came and played and they were a fantastic band. They played some great, great songs that everybody knew, that everybody was rockin’ out to."
The event at DU ended earlier than expected when Tufts Emergency Medical Services (TEMS) was called for an intoxicated individual at the party, Cahill said.
"We can’t control what people do when they come into our house ... It was just one of those unfortunate things where one person decided to make some choices that unfortunately led to the event being closed down a little earlier than we had anticipated," Cahill said. "It was too bad that something like that happened, especially when the focus should have been on the music and the event and fundraising."
Silver said he was pleased with how the event ended up despite the venue changes. According to Silver, $4,054 was raised for the American Cancer Society through Tufts Relay For Life.
"I think the dry aspect probably deterred ten percent of ticketholders from coming, but they understood it was a charitable donation," Silver said. "I think besides that everyone was able to have a really good time."
