BY Daigo SAWANO

This year, the 34th Sapporo University Festival was held. Just as last year, there were many booths on the campus, but in two points, it differed from last year's Festival. The traditional 5 day schedule includes a preparation day and a cleaning up day; this year, it was reduced from 5 days to 4 days by cutting the middle day. The other was a shorter time schedule. The festival usually continues until 9:30 each day, but this year, the first day was finished by 7:30, while the second and final day was over by 5:30. As closing time approached, students who were taking part in the festival informed all the people on the campus of the closing time and ushered them out of the campus.

Why were such strict measures taken? There were several reasons. The most important one was the violence that broke out last year. On the first night, after drinking too much, persons from outside quarreled with people inside. This developed into a serious fight. Finally, the police came onto the campus. The university took this problem seriously. They shortened the hours by shortening the intervals between shows on the stage. This year, the committee of the university decided to reduce the schedule in order to prevent such a happening as last year. There had also been a lot of complaints from neighbors because some people stayed on the campus and made a big noise.

But the opinion of students is the opposite to that of the committee. A student who kept a booth said "because of the shortened schedule, the number of visitors declined and it caused a reduction in our sales". Another student, who belongs to a club said "it reduced our opportunity to publicize our activity". But according to the student council, it has already had some meetings with the committee of the university, and they have already decided to shorten next year's Festival as they did this year's. The only procedure for shortening the Festival is agreement between each club in this University and other institutions managed by students. If they accept the decision about shortening the Festival, it will follow the same schedule as this year's.

This year's shortened Festival gives us an opportunity to reconsider what the University Festival should be. The University Festival has not been held simply to entertain the students because the people who live around S.U. also look forward to this Festival. If we take this into consideration, we have to recognize that the S.U. Festival has another face as an event for the community. It is surely good that the festival should warm up, but it is not entertainment for some people. Recently, the number of the universities which prohibit drinking alcohol on the campus has increased. Waseda University, Keioh University and other universities in the Kanto area are good examples of this trend. Such decisions indicate their will to make the Festivals wholesome.

In S.U., we must reconsider whether to restore one day to the Festival or not. This is a matter not only for the schedule. It is important to improve shows to gather more people than before, and of course the students must take part in the Festival more actively. Some students said "I have nothing to do with the Festival because I don't go to the Festival". Isn't it possible to hold a Festival which makes such students want to join in? This is the time when all student should reconsider what the S.U. Festival ought to be.