La Crosse Festival Project
Goal: The La Crosse Changing the Culture of Risky Drinking Behavior Coalition (Coalition) has successfully worked with health care providers, educators, law enforcement and local elected leaders to implement community policies which will improve the local alcohol environment. In 2010, the Coalition turned its attention to alcohol serving polices at the outdoor events and festivals in the area.
Policy: The Coalition targeted 12 evidence based policies which reduce alcohol misuse at large events and are readily observable to the volunteer survey teams. The policies selected are among those suggested by the University of Minnesota Alcohol Epidemiology Program for outdoor events. These policies are:
- Create a secure perimeter in area where alcohol will be sold and consumed
- Identify individuals age 21 or older with wristbands.
- Use distinguishable cups for alcohol
- No pitchers or growlers, limit the number of single servings fin one sale
- Limit cup sizeto 12 oz.
- Stop alcohol sales one hour before the end of the event.
- Server training
- Do discounting of alcohol
- Provide food and alcohol-free beverages
- Limit alcohol industry sponsorship
- Restrict sales to intoxicated persons
- No server drinking on duty.
Method: Two-person teams used an assessment tool created by a local epidemiologist to score 22 local festivals over a five month period, with multiple visits to some events. Teams moved anonymously through the festival grounds using the assessment tool to monitor implementation of the 12 targeted policies. The assessment tool and coding sheet are found in Appendix 1.
Each set of completed assessments, both the score sheet and handwritten notes, were reviewed by a single individual. The reviewer reconciled the observations for each event compiling the narrative comments and creating the numerical score. As needed, the reviewer reconciled the information to reflect variations in the notes or scoring. The variations are reflected in the final compilation. The final report included both a numerical score and comments on each festival. The aggregate results were made public while individual festival scores were given privately to the festival organizers.
Summary: After the final event in late autumn, the festival planners (usually volunteer committees or managers) were invited to a dinner meeting to receive their score and learn how improved alcohol serving policies could reduce alcohol misuse.
At the dinner Coalition members reviewed the 12 policies, shared the aggregate scores and then provided each festival with its individual score. Festival representatives were seated as groups with a coalition representative at each table. During dinner Coalition volunteers and festival officials discussed the results informally. Some festival organizers were willing to discuss and compared scores while other groups preferred to discuss their score privately.
Providing individual scores in a social setting created an atmosphere of trust and a collaborative spirit. Reviewing the aggregate scores with the larger group enabled individual festival organizers to put their individual festival score into perspective.
The seating arrangement encouraged groups to begin internal discussions while the survey results were fresh in their minds.
The aggregate results suggested most festival organizers were taking some steps to reduce underage alcohol use, including ID checks, wristbands and distinguishable cups, but few took steps to discourage over-serving or serving intoxicated patrons. While all festivals checked ID at least some of the time, festival policies to reduce alcohol over-consumption were far less likely to be implemented.
None of the surveyed festivals limited the number of beverages a single buyer could purchase in a single trip. Some festivals only sold canned or bottled beverages, as opposed to pitchers, which resulted in uniform portions.
Volunteer observers reported when intoxicated individuals continued to be served, which is an inherently subjective judgment. Observer notes suggested most sales to intoxicated individuals were borderline situations. Only one festival was free of alcohol advertising and sponsorship, making the refusal to accept alcohol advertising the policy least likely to be adopted.
After reviewing individual festival scores with Coalition volunteers, a general discussion of alcohol sale and serving policies took place. Attendees were encouraged to send servers to responsible beverage server training (TIPS training was offered several months later) and to provide alternative incentives to volunteer servers in lieu of free alcohol.
Between 2010 and 2013 the Coalition surveyed 16 festivals in each of 4 years to determine if additional policies were adopted reduce risky drinking often associated with festivals in Wisconsin were being adopted.
Lessons Learned: The follow-up surveys indicated an uneven pattern of implementation. Strategies that reduce underage drinking are much more likely to be implemented that strategies to reduce binge drinking. The most commonly adopted strategy to prevent binge drinking was to prohibit servers from drinking on duty.
Over the course of the project it became clear that most festival organizers are volunteers, not professional event managers.These volunteer groups were very willing to take steps to prevent alcohol misuse if some technical assistance was available but many could not sustain the needed operational changes over time. Most of the community events are managed by volunteer boards that experience turn over. In addition, these are often primarily fundraising events and asking volunteers to take steps that may hinder fundraising present an inherent conflict. Among the surveyed coalitions compliance with the 12 evidence based policies identified implementation peaked in the second year and then declined slightly.
The La Crosse festival experiment suggests municipalities should consider appending a comprehensiveset of license conditions requiring specific evidence based policies to every “Class B” Temporary license that reduces the likelihood of bine or underage drinking at the festival. Creating a standard package of license conditions establishes clear expectations for festival organizers. A festival’s failure to comply with license conditions could result in the denial of any future license requests providing a powerful incentive for compliance.
License conditions are also a sustainable approach for community anti-drug coalitions with only a modest investment of time for annual review and enforcement required each year.
Many thanks to Brenda Rooney, PhD., MPH of Gunderson Health System in La Crosse for her assistance.
UW Law School | Wisconsin Alcohol Policy Project / 1