The unofficial UMass Amherst pre-St. Patrick’s Day event known as Blarney Blowout is set for Saturday.
Last year, it made international headlines when 58 students were arrested at drunken celebrations across Amherst, and police were criticized for their aggressive response.
This year, extra ambulances are set aside, local police received special training and some Amherst bars are opening late.
Some UMass students have very clear memories of Blarney Blowout last year.
“I was woken at 7 a.m. to a guy double-fisting beers outside my apartment with, like, full green regalia,” remembers Sarah DiZio, a senior English major, who says she chose not to join in. “They were, like, dancing and they were having fun, because they just started and it was 7 o’clock in the morning. They started so early that by 3 p.m., it was just a mess.”
Those students, many who weren’t even UMass students, gathered near off-campus housing, clashed with police and then marched across North Amherst.
The embarrassment from that led UMass and the town to hire former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis to recommend new ways of policing large crowds. The basics: don’t start with riot gear, restrict visitors to campus and promote non-alcoholic activities.
To keep students away from the green beer and on campus this year, UMass booked a concert featuring artists Ke$ha, Juicy J and Ludacris.
“I think it’s funny that they chose those people, because it just seems so, like, older people being like, ‘What do the kids want? Maybe we’ll get, like, Ke$ha, I don’t know.'”
Add Andrew Desrochers, a junior business major, to the skeptics.
“I think that it’s a waste of money at this point,” he says. “People will still keep up with tradition.”
Still, some in town are hoping for a better result this year. Jason DiCaprio owns High Horse Brewery and Bistro in Amherst. He says his business doesn’t get involved in Blarney Blowout.
“It’s never sort-of been something we’ve encouraged or advertised,” DiCaprio says. “It’s never been something we’ve sort-of let happen even.”
Some other bars have agreed to delay their opening until 4 in the afternoon, but DiCaprio says he’ll start serving brunch, as usual, at 11 a.m. You might expect that a weekend all about drinking would help a bar’s business, but, not so, he says.
“We actually get less, because a lot of the students [who] are drinking really overnight and early, and coming out to party early, are usually done by the afternoon,” he says.
From Ke$ha to brunch to house parties, no one knows for sure what students will choose this year.