Despite the hordes of people, alcohol, concerts and neon, Roundup 2013 was relatively successful in terms of safety, according to the University Interfraternity Council and the South West Emergency Action Team, a group of independently contracted first responders.
Tannifer Ayres, president of the emergency team, said Roundup 2013 was safer than previous Roundups and noted a lack of trauma-related injuries.
“To my knowledge, we only treated minor injuries this weekend,” Ayres said. “I’ll have to look at the comprehensive report, but nothing stands out. In years past, we’ve had to treat a lot of trauma injuries. Last year, someone was stabbed outside a Roundup event.”
Ayres said safety initiatives implemented for Roundup have made it a safer event to participate in, and she said even stricter initiatives will be implemented for Roundup 2014.
“The frats did a good job providing security and medical detail,” Ayres said. “This year, the frats had us rolling from house to house. Next year, we will have individual units at each house. It will facilitate quicker responses and make us more efficient.”
Donald James McNamara, president of the IFC, said the weekend went according to plan and cited the importance of safety initiatives.
“I haven’t looked at the comprehensive incident report,” McNamara said, “but to my knowledge, there were no serious injuries. Pretty good considering we handed out over 19,000 of our 20,000 wristbands.”
During the weekend, several parties were shut down by the Austin Police Department. On Saturday night, police responded to a riot outside a West Campus concert featuring rapper Juicy J in which a crowd of about 200 attempted to break through a gate to gain entrance to the concert, according to an arrest affidavit. According to the affidavit, only one arrest was made after police broke up the crowd.
Juicy J tweeted at 10 p.m. that police had shut down his concert. McNamara said most parties are shut down to promote the safety of those in attendance, and that police shut downs aren’t indicative of illicit activity more serious than fire hazards.
“A lot of events are shut down because there are so many people,” McNamara said. “At capacity, a lot of these places can hold 6,000 people. We had close to 20,000 attend Roundup. The numbers get too high and the authorities have to shut down the parties to keep everyone safe.”
McNamara said wristband distribution efforts contributed to the weekend’s success.
“In years past there have been a lot of problems,” McNamara said. “Our teams this year did a great job getting the wristbands out in a timely manner. It kept everything very manageable.”
Published on March 25, 2013 as "Glowing success".
