Frisbees flying, halibut frying and babies crying — boy howdy, it’s time for the ASUO Spring Street Faire, the true rite of passage for the coming of spring.
This year’s Faire, which runs today through Friday, will feature more than just food and craft booths. There will be a 24-hour art marathon, 20 bands will play over three days in the EMU Amphitheater, and Campus Recycling is attempting to make the event waste-free.
This year, there will also be a few more food booths. The Street Faire’s organizers felt bad about making the nonprofit groups pay a fee for the space, so this year the nonprofit groups will be along the Amphitheater breezeway and they won’t be charged a participation fee. The move means more room for art and food booths, and Street Faire organizers said the food court will be the biggest it’s ever been. There will be the standard India House and Bangkok Grill booths, but new vendors include Kettle Corn and Just for the Halibut, which will serve fish as well as elephant ears.
Along with adding all the new food, there is a plan to compost it, as well. At the Fall Street Faire, Campus Recycling reduced overall waste by 50 percent through recycling and composting efforts, according to Karyn Kaplan, the recycling manager. This year, there will be six recycling stations on 13th Avenue that will include compost bins, and all cardboard, glass, plastic, metals, recyclable paper, plates, napkins and chopsticks will be recycled.
“Composting is on the cutting edge right now,” Kaplan said.
Campus Recycling has encouraged food vendors to buy things that are compostable, and student workers will be directing people to place compostable waste in provided containers.
The music lineup was organized by campus radio station KWVA.
Tambi Boyle, ASUO marketing director, said that the organizers of the Street Faire enlisted KWVA’s help in getting bands in order to have a variety of different music.
“KWVA has more tentacles in the band community than we do,” Boyle said.
Charlotte Nisser, general manager for the radio station, said that the idea was to get a variety of interesting bands that would appeal to a college audience.
“KWVA is an outlet for the under-represented,” Nisser said. “And many of these bands are under-represented.”
On Wednesday the music will start at 10 a.m. and go until 5. p.m. On Thursday, bands will play from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. On Friday the music will start at 10 a.m. and go until 4 p.m. Each day from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., there will be all-acoustic sets so that the noise level will be low during the Career Fair and classes.
Highlights of the Faire include:
Wednesday: Justin Martinez will rock the acoustic as Basic Assumption unplugged.
Thursday: Honey Vizer, a Eugene resident who has been playing her guitar, banjo and accordion for years now, will perform. She has been carving out a corner for herself in the world of country-folk-punk. Bitesize is from the Bay Area and plays short songs about automobile accidents, body parts and freak love.
Friday: Papa’s Soul Kitchen plays R&B, soul and funk. The band members said they like to groove and want to spread messages of peace, love and understanding. Miami Airlines, which plays a form of mexicali-ska kind of like Sublime, will also play.
There will also be a 24-hour art event sponsored by a group that calls itself The Experiment. The art marathon will take place during the Street Faire at a booth near Condon Hall. The event will run from noon Thursday to noon Friday. From 10 p.m. Thursday to 10 a.m. Friday, the event will take place at the EMU Amphitheater.
The marathon is a fund-raiser for Inside-Out, a two-day art festival that will take place the first weekend of June at the McDonald Theatre. The Experiment has organized a variety of art events throughout the last two terms to raise money for the event. Mary Rasmussen, visual arts coordinator for the UO Cultural Forum, is one of the event’s organizers.
“The idea is to have people creating and producing art for the straight twenty-four hours,” Rasmussen said. “Basically, we are all artists that would normally be doing art at the wee hours of the night, and we have decided to present it as a spectacle in order to help make a local two-day art show possible.”
The organizers have scheduled a varied group of artists to do sculpting, art demonstrations, painting, an interactive continuing art piece and poetry. The group cannot have amplified music, however, because it is restricted to the Amphitheater during class hours.
“We also wanted to make art more visible on campus, because it seems as though support for the arts isn’t such a priority in an athletics-driven school,” Rasmussen said.