Change—as the old saying goes—is for the better. When it comes to names, a little tweaking can make a big difference. At least that's what a group of students calling themselves the Halloween Action Committee are banking on.
Originally, HAC wanted to move Halloween festivities/riots from their traditional home/battleground on State Street to the friendlier confines of Langdon Street. Their intentions were pure. They didn't want to pay a cover charge.
It started off as a Facebook group creatively titled ""Move Halloween to Langdon 2006,"" but soon the mayor's office took notice. Perhaps it's because, unlike State Street, Langdon Street actually has traffic and the idea of 50,000 kids trying to party in the road poses some serious safety concerns, or maybe Mayor Dave was hoping to use the money raised from the proposed $5 Halloween cover charge to buy all those ceramic cows to decorate his lawn.
Either way, the mayor and HAC went to the drawing board and came up with ""Freakfest on State Street,"" a kinder, gentler version of Halloween that comes complete with a groovy Jack O' Lantern logo that will look great on a $20 T-shirt. Hey, if a name change and a new logo works in the WNBA, why not in Madison?
But in all fairness, there's more to Freakfest than just a logo. They're also tossing around words like ""safe,"" ""tame"" and ""legitimate,"" none of which have ever been used in a reference about Halloween in Madison before, and with good reason.
While I've never been a big Halloween guy, I can see why people get excited about it. If you start throwing things like safety and legitimacy into the mix, people are going to lose interest. When was the last time you heard somebody say, ""Hey, let's go to the KK tonight, I hear it's going to be really tame,"" or ""There's this really legitimate kegger in my friend's friend's basement on Breese Terrace?""
And how do Tom Wangard and Brandon Sivret, the boys behind HAC, plan to bring this gentler version of Halloween to life? Rock n' Roll, of course, because nothing says safe and tame like an open-air rock festival called Freakfest. Apparently, the WWE was busy that weekend.
Forgive me if I sound a bit cynical, but as my dad likes to say, ""Who died and made you king?"" So far as I can tell, Wangard and Sivret started a Facebook group, climbed into bed with the mayor and presto-chango, Freakfest was born. Two years ago, I formed the Underpants Dance Party group on Facebook, and I'm still waiting for my big break. These guys show up mid-summer, and all of a sudden they're God's gift to easily exploitable costumed college rock enthusiasts.
But I digress.
Perhaps I'm being too hard on Wangard and Sivret. After all, they're just trying to keep the Halloween dream alive. And who knows, maybe they'll succeed and Freakfest 2006 will be a major success. If not, they could try a new color scheme on their logo for 2007. That's sure to calm the drunken masses.
