The tri-campus snowball fight returned after a year’s hiatus, as roughly 60 students made their way to Front Campus on January 10 to participate in the event. Organizers attributed the low turnout to bad weather and poor snowball-making conditions.
In 2015, the snowball fight was organized by Madina Siddiqui and Frishta Bastan, who said at the time that they hoped it would become an annual event. That year reportedly saw 400 students gather on Front Campus, with 2,600 saying they would attend on a Facebook event. The next year, 4,200 students said they were interested in or going on Facebook.
This year there were over 2,000 people in total who indicated their interest on Facebook; however, the turnout was not what was expected given the social media response.
“Given the freezing rain aspect, I’m gonna take what we have,” said Evan Price, President of Delta Upsilon, the fraternity that organized this year’s event. “It’s still fun any time you get this many people doing one thing at U of T. It’s always a good thing.”
While the snowball fight has never had an official affiliation with the university, UTSU President Mathias Memmel wrote to The Varsity, “In 2016 we provided paramedical support, hot chocolate, and music in the form of Disney’s ‘Frozen’ but none of these services were requested by the event hosts nor do they appear on our website.”
Price said that he and the other members of Delta Upsilon had been thinking of events to hold for the first week back at school. “We didn’t see anyone taking initiative on it, and we just thought we’d do it, bringing out some hot chocolate and trying to get some people together.”
