Too Much of a Good Thing This Weekend

After dozens of uneventful weekends, Harvard students were suddenly faced with the prospect of more events than they could possibly attend. Arts First and Yard Fest, two campus extravaganzas, were plied into the same weekend.

Both contributed to life a Harvard. ArtsFirst, with its hundreds of exhibitions, shows and performances offered students the opportunity to expand their minds appreciation of the arts.

Students this weekend could feast on offerings ranging from "Painting an Epic Poem" to performances by the Radcliffe Choral society. Friday, Saturday and Sunday were packed with non-stop events.

Yard Fest made its contribution is a slightly more Bacchanalian way; it made Harvard feel like a real college. Rock bands, posters promising beer, and a moon bounce made students realize that Harvard can be fun too.

Both events brought students from other area schools together and kept the campus abuzz. But why were both events on the same weekend? The coincidence of the events forced students to choose between the two, rather than thoroughly enjoying both.

A student who wanted to watch the bands playing at Yard Fest was unable to attend performances by the Veritones, the Radcliffe Choral Society, Imani, The Printpems Trio and many others. while making this type of tough decisions is in many ways enviable, there seems to be little reason why both events were scheduled for the same weekend.

It is true that warm weather is rare in Cambridge, but there are enough such weekends to schedule should ArtsFirst and Yard Fest at different times. Next year the organizers should stagger the events. It seems clear that artists and spectators alike would benefit from the change.