The Mifflin Street Block Party is a piece of the University of Wisconsin-Madison that is as entrenched in the fabric of the school as anything else, whether the school likes it or not. While dozens of items, columns and what-have-yous will be written about Mifflin over the course of the week, more will be written about Revelry, the on-campus music festival created in its stead.
I could open this up with a lofty history of Mifflin, how the inaugural event featured the arrest of the current mayor of Madison, Paul Soglin, one of the people who is responsible for the annual end-of-year celebration’s demise. But I will resist every urge I have to instead give a series of disclaimers, to put all of my cards as a columnist on the table. I am a sophomore here, which means I missed all the “real” Mifflins. Furthermore, last year, I was on the marketing team for Revelry, a role I did not reprise this year.
With all of that in mind, I am writing this column from a unique perspective. The version of Mifflin I heard about was one of great revelry, with a lowercase “r,” where on the final Saturday before finals, one of the most vibrant campuses in the world, (said with only the smallest amounts of bias), came together to blow off some steam. It was a weekend that typified “play hard” before the next two weeks where one moves into College Library to “work hard.”
Arrest records and the amount of police sent to patrol the situation clearly tell a different story, but in the pseudo-reality created by a college campus, Mifflin was described as the most idyllic day possible. The last time you could totally relax with your friends before school was over, before you parted ways for the summer, or potentially, before you graduated. Before I proceed, yes, “totally relax” is extremely euphemistic, but I won’t beat you over the head with it.
When Revelry, with a capital “r,” was created as the “May 4th Festival,” it was not expressly a Mifflin replacement. When the question came up among the marketing team, we came up with the answer of “We wanted to have a student-centric, end-of-the-year event before the chaos of finals. It’s a spring celebration.”
What came next hit us on the marketing team as much by surprise as it did the rest of the general public. The Madison police department announced they were bringing an iron fist down on Mifflin and painted us on the Revelry team in something of a corner. With a lineup fit as an alternative option, not a primary one, at best, with hundreds of extra police officers around, the final Saturday before exams turned Madison into a quasi-police state threat.
But what does that leave us with for this year’s event? Headlined by Dillon Francis, Waka Flocka Flame, G-Eazy and Sky Ferriera, this year’s lineup is certainly an upgrade over last year’s inaugural event headlined by Toro Y Moi, Hoodie Allen and Chance the Rapper, who was just days removed from the release of Acid Rap.
But Mifflin was unique to UW-Madison whereas Revelry could happen anywhere. The Little 500 at Indiana is something that only happens at Indiana. The bands that come there for the event are just a small piece of it, but the event itself spirals well out of control of what the school may have intended or wanted.
From an administrative and police standpoint, I’m sure the school would rather have the students planning and attending a cookie-cutter music festival, with the promises of Madison touches like the creation of a “mini Terrace” with “real Terrace chairs.” But Mifflin was a UW-Madison event that can only happen here.
Whether Revelry can turn into Crawfest,—which it won’t, as Crawfest is something that can only happen at Tulane University in New Orleans— is something that will not happen this year but will take many years to foster and develop.
But one thing I can tell you is that for this year, while people here have attended Mifflin, Revelry is an extremely thinly veiled attempt at getting rid of a Madison institution, but not necessarily a proud one for faculty.
How do you feel about the city of Madison having such a harsh crackdown on the Mifflin Street Block Party? Was it the appropriate response in order to stop the event from getting out of hand or did it go too far? Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
