After months of speculation and hope among the student body, Mayfest and Northwestern announce today that there will be a beer garden on Dillo Day for students 21 and older. The beer garden will be located just south of the Lacrosse field and adjacent to the Dillo Day field. In the press release announcing the news today, Mayfest exec member Josh Wasserman said the “location will allow students to have a beer with a clear line of sight to the stage.”

The beer available will include Coors Light, Miller Light, Goose Island 312, and Leinenkugel Summer Shandy, and only cost $5 per beer (only cash will be accepted, meaning no “munch money” will be used to buy alcohol). The beer garden will be available to faculty, students and staff of the university of legal drinking age. Students will be allowed to sign in up to three guests to the beer garden as well.

Student entrants to the beer garden will also be required to show two forms of identification, including a Wildcard and another showing proof of ace (i.e. a drivers license). Dillo Day and Northwestern also say that the number of beers each individual can purchase is five, but they do not indicate how this will monitored.

The introduction of the beer garden to Dillo Day clearly exists in the shadow of off-campus controversy between Evanston residents and students that has escalated in the past year. By allowing many students to drink on campus, from 1pm to 7pm, it could significantly decrease the amount of students who drink and drink aggressively off campus during the day. Mayfest Co-Chair Michael Gebhardt says they “expect the beer garden will also encourage a significant number of people to remain on the lakefill throughout the day and hopefully will reduce some of the issues the University experiences off campus.”

The beer garden will also be sponsored in part by Sodexo.

Courtesy of Northwester.edu

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