On Halloween of 2005, Wendy Hathaway and a few of her friends found themselves in the middle of a police effort to break up the crowd that gathered on State Street for the holiday’s festivities.
“I remember the police in riot gear; seeing people climbing light posts and trees and throwing things,” said Wendy Hathaway, freelance writer and UW-Madison alumna. “You couldn’t see the small fires that had been set, but you could see the rising smoke from them.”
Hathaway and her friends left the crowd that same Halloween night in 2005 in an attempt to escape the tear gas the police released.
“There was the unmistakable feeling that something really bad could happen, and I’m thankful no one was seriously hurt,” Hathaway said. “We tried to find some safe, open spaces by hurrying toward Langdon Street, but ended up coughing and gagging just like thousands of other people.”
Before the incorporation of Freakfest into the Halloween celebration in Madison, chaos notoriously ensued, said Tag Evers, talent buyer for Freakfest and employee of Frank Productions, the company that plans the annual event.
He noted that the overwhelming crowds, riots, tear gas and student arrests had taken place from the late 1990s to the early 2000s.
Before Freakfest, State Street businesses would experience broken windows and looting at the end of the night, according to Evers. He said store owners eventually began to move away to different locations because they would experience this damage annually, he said.
“People were coming from all over the Midwest to witness a riot and some to participate in it. It became a thing,” Evers explained. “That obviously couldn't continue.”
According to Joel DeSpain, public information officer of the Madison Police Department, the holiday can also be a drain on taxpayer dollars, though not to the extent of years prior to Freakfest.
In 2006, the event cost the city $375,000 in overtime and supplies. In 2015, the event cost about $165,000 according to DeSpain.
Although Freakfest began in 2006, in 2007 the City of Madison contacted Frank Productions, a family-owned, full-service concert promotion company, with the hope of creating a more organized, safe and fun Halloween celebration.
“How we structure staffing and the fact that we don’t need as many on officers as we did when rioting was taking place are among the reasons for a less expensive party,” DeSpain said.
Throughout the past 10 years of Frank Productions’ involvement in Freakfest, several well-known headliners have performed, such as Lifehouse, Cage the Elephant, Neon Trees, Mac Miller, Atmosphere and Anderson .Paak.
Frank Productions’ goal was to create a positive event by having quality entertainment while still encouraging students to have a party on Halloween, according to Evers.
In order to achieve this, the holiday had to be positive for all citizens of Madison.
“Businesses are totally supportive because they don't have to worry—it used to be that in order to prevent your storefront windows from being broken, business owners would have to stay, with their lights on, standing in front of their stores sometimes with baseball bats and just protect their own property,” Evers said.
According to the event’s website, in 2005 there were 334 arrests, versus 13 arrests last Saturday.
In a 2011 article Hathaway released during her time on the Wisconsin Alumni Association, the blurb of a photo of three male students dressed as beer cans stated: “The Wisconsin Student Association organizes the first official Halloween tradition, securing permits to sell beer to students on Library Mall.”
Although Hathaway admits she’s never attended Freakfest, she attests to the fact that the implementation of an organized Halloween celebration has changed the holiday for the better.
“If someone hadn’t stepped in and pushed for changes, who knows what might have happened in the following years?” she said. “It’s not a good time if you spent all night worried about making it home.”
Evers also said it’s hard to argue with the benefits for the city since the incorporation of Freakfest into the holiday.
“People can complain and say, 'I wish we had the old days where we could do what we want,'” Evers said. “Well, you know, instead we have something that everyone can participate in and have a good time, including families and people from all different walks of life and I think that's a good thing.”
