News
Mixed response greets big changes to W.I.L.D.
Attendees at Washington University’s W.I.L.D., the bi-annual musical festival, will witness significant changes to the event’s management this year.
The changes will affect both Second Stage, the pre-W.I.L.D. event, and Main Stage, the concert that will take place on Brookings Quadrangle.
Second Stage—the smaller part of W.I.L.D. that features student bands—will take place at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, April 27 on the Village Lawn. This is a change from previous semesters.
“We’re moving second stage up to a later time because it’s usually in the morning around 11 to noon and it’s not well attended, because it’s Friday,” Team 31 public relations representative, sophomore Chisom Uche, said. “Hopefully at 2:30 classes will be wrapping up and people will be getting ready to enjoy the day. It makes it a more cohesive event.”
Second Stage, which usually takes place outside the DUC, will be alcohol-free and will also feature artists and food. Student bands will perform, as well as a headliner, electro-techno DJ Felix da Housecat. Team 31 hopes these changes will create a more festival-like feel.
Team 31 will also be raffling off two tickets for the Fun. concert at the Pageant in June during Second Stage. Raffle tickets will be sold throughout the week at T-shirt sales.
“We want to make it more of a festival feel than it has in the past to try to appeal to the music festival movement that is going on today,” Uche said.
Students opinions are mixed about the change in location.
“I think it was nice having that event going on in the middle of campus,” freshman Tiffany Lin said. “But now that they’ve moved it, the underclassmen don’t get to experience it and frankly I’m not sure the upperclassmen will be that excited about it.”
The Main Stage part of W.I.L.D., the concert which will feature the Dum Dum Girls and Fitz and The Tantrums, will begin at 5:30 p.m. on Brookings Quadrangle.
In previous semesters, students 21 years old and up have been permitted to bring one six-pack of beer into the event. However, this will not be the case for this year’s spring W.I.L.D. Instead, students 21 and up will be given a wristband and will be allowed three cups of beer that will be provided for them at the event.
“We tried to work with the administration to get the best of both worlds in there,” Uche said of the change in alcohol policy. “The new alcohol policy is more of an experiment to try to balance what the students want and what the administration wants.”
Students feel differently about the alcohol policy change.
“In my experience at W.I.L.D., it’s not the 21-year-olds getting sick [from alcohol poisoning],” junior Jamie Neiman said. “It shows Wash. U.’s lack of trust in its students.”
“I think it might be a good idea for people who usually get drunk and do stupid things,” sophomore Jessica Yoon said. “But it also might be hard to enforce and people still might be able to share their drinks with other students.”