Music festivals should be something that universities and colleges use to bring their students together and create friendships.
Fresh Fest is an event that is well known in the Lethbridge community as a fun and entertaining event. Opening this event to the community may allow university students to make connections with people outside the university.
This past weekend the University of Lethbridge held its annual concert hosting popular artists like Classified, Grandson and Bryce Vine.
Despite the festival going over well and 1,800 students showing up, some people disagree with the rule that only some people have access to Fresh Fest.
Being a university event, Fresh Fest was only open to university students, meaning no college students or Lethbridge and area locals were allowed in the event.
Even with Lethbridge being a student-populated community, there still seems to be a big divide in perceptions between the university and college students.
When Lethbridge College first opened, it was known as a community college and was held to a lower standard than the university, according to college students. Over the years, the college has managed to upgrade and increase its legitimacy, but it seems that perceptions of the college haven’t changed.
That is not the case though as college students feel they are putting in the same amount of work and effort into their education as a university student does.
The university is not the only school that hosts these festivals. The college has a very similar festival known as Coulee Fest that is also hosted every September.
Coulee Fest is different from Fresh Fest in the way that the festival held by the college is known as a community event and is open to anyone in Lethbridge.
This increases the Coulee Fest turnout, allowing college students to engage with other students and members from the community.
Fresh Fest only allows university students in, which means the students can only meet other university students. This doesn’t let students engage with people from the Lethbridge community.
Fresh Fest does bring up some issues as it is mostly seen as a festival that encourages students to drink and party.
With there being no outside community members allowed into Fresh Fest, there is the potential for students tend to drink too much, with the festival ending with fights or sick students.
This could be avoided if the university was to open Fresh Fest to the community and the college as well. Opening this event to the community will allow family’s and younger teenagers to attend the event which may calm down the student crowd during Fresh Fest.
Opening Fresh Fest to these people would allow the university students to build relationships with people outside the university.
Doing this will also combine the college and the university for a weekend which will help people understand both schools and have connections at both schools.
When asked about combining the two events into one festival, event organizer Kierian Turner said that the university uses recreational fees to host the event as this is the reason the university can bring in top name bands and artists.
This adds to why Fresh Fest is exclusively for university students, but it can easily be fixed.
The band that plays shouldn’t be the first thought behind the event. The event is made to bring students together especially the first-year students that don’t know anyone.
Having the most popular bands is nice, but both festivals should bring in local bands or artists that are attending the schools and focus more on the relationship-building aspects of the festival. This includes things like group games, dunk tanks and local food and drinks.
Overall, Fresh Fest is a fun and entertaining event, but it would be better for the University to open it to the community as well. This will help build and grow university students and help connect the college and university students.