West Virginia University has moved next week's annual back-to-school concert amid questions about the safety of the plaza outside the Mountainlair student union.
A recent engineering study of the plaza raised some questions about its safety when it is being heavily used. WVU spokesman John Bolt said administrators decided to move the school's annual concert that harkens the beginning of the year away from the downtown campus because of the concerns the study raised.
FallFest is being moved to the Evansdale campus in the parking lot next to the relatively new building that houses the school's College of Physical Activity and Sports Sciences. The event will largely remain the same, save for the venue change.
Bolt said he didn't know how much weight would be too much for the plaza to handle, but for "the kids playing basketball," he said they should be fine to use the plaza.
"WVU is committed to continuing FallFest," Bolt said. "This is not some sort of backdoor way to move it out the door. No, we're committed to continuing it."
The final decision to move the concert came late Friday night, according to Bolt. Moving the concert to the Evansdale campus wasn't even WVU's first choice - administrators only settled on that as a new location late Tuesday night.
Bolt said that in the past, there was at least one year where the school held the concert in the field between the Life Sciences Building and the College of Business and Economics. The school considered having the concert there, but that area has a slope to it and might be difficult to get a stage to be level there. Even if it could get level, the area might not hold all of the students expected to attend the concert.
And Woodburn Circle, too, was out because it just isn't a big enough space.
"The crowd gets to be 20,000 people," Bolt said. "Plus the stage and all the equipment and all of that stuff - and they want to do some more studies to get some more conclusions - but with any question that it might not be safe, there was no alternative but to not put it on the plaza."
Kristie Stewart-Gale, marketing and advertising manager for the school's events office, thinks the venue change could make the whole event better.
"You know, I look at it as a change. Change is hard, and people kind of look at it and say, 'Oh no," she said. "It's going to be a great event and just as enjoyable, if not more so, than it was on the plaza."
Last year, WVU hosted for the first time a FoodFest, a sister event for FallFest where students can line up to try free food from restaurants local to the Morgantown area. Having the concert on the Evansdale campus will make it easier to go from one event to the other, Stewart-Gale said.
There will still be a lot of transportation to and from the event with the PRT operating through the night and extra buses available to shuttle students to and from the downtown campus to Evansdale.
The school will release the full FallFest lineup sometime mid-day Friday.
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