Raymond Kwan
Contributor
This year’s YorkFest, from Sept. 20 to Sept. 24, is markedly different from previous years: it’s now part of a collaboration between the Student Centre and YFS that lets them pool resources to make this year’s Welcome Week bigger and better and avoid the redundancy of hosting two separate events with the same goal.
In previous years, the Student Centre and the York Federations of Students (YFS) would each host separate welcome-back events and concerts.
“This year we combined them,” said Jeremy Salter, executive director of the YFS. “There was a recognition that we were duplicating each other. Instead of having a barbeque in Vanier Field, a concert and having the campus walk, and then [another] concert, why don’t we have the barbeque and campus walk at the same time and have a mega-awesome concert?”
Scott Jarvis, director of the Student Centre, said the decision to join forces was made by the board of directors of the Student Centre because it “did not make sense to have the same events twice.”
He said that while the event received the same number of sponsors, the amount of funding is down compared to last year. Jarvis noted that the decline in funding for this year’s Welcome Week can be explained by the current economic downturn.
According to Salter, the YFS and the Student Centre were able to obtain $70,000 from sponsors this year, $20,000 less than what the Student Centre received last year for YorkFest.
The overall cost, however, has decreased since the YFS and Student Centre combined YorkFest and Welcome Week.
The YFS pulled no punches allocating funds for YorkFest, spending approximately $100,000 from the YFS budget to host the week’s events, as well as an additional $115,000 on swag to give out.
The YFS was determined to cut costs by finding an alternative venue for YorkFest, and settled on hosting the yearly concert at Downsview Park, where they hosted their Welcome Week concert last year.
According to Salter, Downsview Park was selected because of its cheaper price tag compared to the cost to rent Rexall Centre’s indoor tennis court.
Renting York’s Rexall Centre indoor tennis court for the concert would cost the YFS around $12,000, while the Downsview Park venue cost only $2,500, he explained.
Also, added Salter, the cost of the four shuttle buses looping between Keele Campus and Downsview Park will be around $2,000; they start
service at 6 p.m.
This year, YorkFest will feature a wide variety of familiar and new events alike, including an outdoor movie night featuring The A-Team, Dirty Bingo, the YorkFest Village and barbeque, a pub night at the Underground, a trip to the Medieval Times restaurant and the highly anticipated N.E.R.D. concert at Downsview Park on Wednesday, Sept 22.
“[YFS] has seven full days’ worth of events, which started with our welcome breakfast last week and then [YFS] also went to the Red and Blue Bowl for the annual football game. We have events every day this week, so it’s not just hosting the same events,” said Vanessa Hunt, vice-president of campus life for the YFS.
