The UP Fair: a dying tradition

Don't come any closer!

Don't come any closer!

This weekend marked the one of our State University’s grandest annual traditions, the U.P. Fair (the other tradition, beating the fuck out of neophytes happens year-round,) and as expected, it was again marred by violence and chaos.

Last Friday, fair organizers sold too many tickets and had turn away ticket holders who promptly rioted and tore down the barricades enclosing the fair grounds (another UP Fair tradition.)

Text messages spread soon after warning against “hooligans” (also known as Jumping Jologs, also known as Orcs) who might cause trouble due to their nature of being hooligans.

There was a time when the UP Fair was a venue for students to let loose and discreetly get drunk on school grounds, but each year, it has become more about the outsiders who crash the party or hang around in fucking hordes outside threatening to do same.

Past fairs have featured stabbings, impromptu calls for fraternity members to beef up the anemic U.P. Police keeping out ruffians, and the walls being pulled down by an army of black-clad mayhem-causing punks whose number seems to increase exponentially each year.

Increasingly, the U.P. Fair is becoming less U.P. and less fair.

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