Picnic Day - Davis Wiki

Picnic Day has its origins in the University Farm Picnic in the early half of the last century.

Location

All across the UCD campus

Date

Saturday, April 18th, 2009 (95th Annual)

Email

mailto:picnicday@ucdavis.edu

Website

http://picnicday.ucdavis.edu

Parent Organizations

Associated Students of UC Davis (ASUCD)

& Student Programs & Activities Center (SPAC)

Established

1909

The University of California, Davis, will host the 96th edition of Picnic Day, its annual open house and oldest honored tradition, on Saturday, Saturday, April 17, 2010. Picnic Day has an expected attendance of 125,000 visitors and is believed to be the largest student-run event in the nation. In 2007-2008 an estimated 100,000 people attended and reports for the UC Davis Centennial (2008-2009) place attendance anywhere between 125,000 and 150,000. Current and prospective students, alumni, staff, faculty, and people from everywhere are invited to attend this festive day that showcases the talents, achievements and history of the university. With more than 150 free events throughout campus, Picnic Day provides fun and education for all ages.

Prior Picnic Days are documented at:

A double decker bus A tractor in the parade Yet another tractor in the parade

Also see the Whole Earth Festival, another large campus festival.

Picnic Day is the day every April when anybody who has ever lived in Davis or attended UC Davis comes back to town and wanders around Campus and Downtown. There's a giant parade in the morning and events and exhibitions all over the place. The parade starts with words from the Chancellor and the Picnic Day parade marshals and then a terrific performance by the California Aggie Marching Band-Uh. Two of the highlights of Picnic Day are, of course, the Doxie Derby and the Battle of the Bands. The battle of the bands always features both Band-uh and The marching lumberjacks. Student bands and dance groups can be seen on any of the various stages. The event tries to capture many things that are quintessentially Davis. It is an agricultural showcase and open house for school organizations.

In 2004 there were two Battle of the Bands events, one being marching bands from all over California and the other being local rock bands (this was called the Davis Rock Challenge). The winner of the Davis Rock Challenge was Doug Douglas. In 2005 the organizers of Picnic Day decided to reduce the amount of live music offered and not have the Davis Rock Challenge, but rather host a dance competition called the Davis Dance Revolution (DDR). DDR is open to all registered student organizations to enter and is co-hosted by Campus Unions, SPAC, and Picnic Day.

Many students love Picnic Day because they wake up in the morning and start drinking. Their love is shown in their drunken appearance wandering the streets and the massive amounts of garbage that line their party districts the next morning. This has led to conflict with the community, including the Sterling Riot in which early Picnic Day celebrations turned violent.

⁠	This UCD program receives ASUCD subsidies.

"White Family Day"

Some people refer to Picnic Day as White Family Day, a play on the university's Black Family Week/Black Family Day. The phrase is meant to draw attention to some sort undercurrent of racism in Picnic Day. References to this term have been found in Aggies as old as 1986. However 2005's Picnic Day featured a variety of cultures, including an all-black color guard/percussion squad, as well as the Jewish Student Union, who participates in Picnic Day every year and advocates diversity in culture. Also, since Picnic Day 2002, there has been a Multicultural Children's Faire (MCF) held at Hart Hall where children can make crafts from all over the world. Although it is unclear whether this refers to the mistaken perception that the word "Picnic" has racist overtones most modern etymologists agree that the roots of the word do no. The Picnic Day Board is a broad cross-section of the community. In recent years some ethnic student groups or centers have refused to participate or attend, which may in itself create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nevertheless, today Picnic Day is an event for the entire community and provides every opportunity for everyone to participate.

Putting on Picnic Day

Picnic Day is run by 17 students who form the Board of Directors. Each director handles a separate area or event. Picnic Day planning for the next year begins shortly after the end of each year's event. Each director usually has 1-3 assistants who help in the planning and execution of Picnic Day each year. Picnic Day dates are chosen 7-8 years in advance. The Picnic Day Chair is nominated by the ASUCD President and confirmed by the ASUCD Senate. Other members of the board are hired at the sole discretion of the Chair.

The event is sponsored by the University and ASUCD, in fact ASUCD put $20,519 into the 2004 Picnic Day budget. (Whole Earth Festival, another University event and ASUCD unit is not subsidized at all.) Picnic Day's funds support communications (radios & sound for stages) , equipment, printing (posters, flyers, schedule of events etc.), technical support (web and sound equipment for stages & classrooms), hiring multi-cultural Entertainment/performers, the Multi-Cultural Children's Faire, stage rental from another ASUCD unit, food and t-shirts for the volunteers, among many other things that must be paid for to bring Picnic Day to UC Davis. The money helps Picnic Day remain free from being overly commercialized (meaning where Picnic Day would be dependent on sponsorships or dependent on selling items to make money instead of focusing on being the university's open house), and allows student organizations to fundraise through selling food and other items. It is estimated that the University provides for nearly 75% of the cost of running Picnic Day, with ASUCD contributing the remaining 25%. Picnic Day although not as commercialized as Whole Earth Festival benefits from various community sponsorships.

Is this really a suborg of ASUCD? I thought it was affiliated, but not entirely under the control of ASUCD as the head of this entry suggests. — jw

It's pretty much under the direction of ASUCD, but Student Affairs lends a lot of support to Picnic Day. That's why it's called the "nation's largest student run event" —BrentLaabs
Actually Picnic Day is shared by SPAC & ASUCD, and ultimately falls under the supervision of Student Affairs. The student board is supervised by a SPAC advisor. When I worked for Picnic Day, our Chairwoman seemed to deal with ASUCD for some financial business, hiring personnel, and to fight over office space with other ASUCD units. The majority of our support came from SPAC, Student Affairs, and various other departments including the Alumni Association and the Chancellor's Office. At the time Picnic Day was the unwanted step-child of the ASUCD Senate & Executive Office who completely missed the point of the open house concept and wanted to cut Picnic Day because it wasn't "a money maker". This issue seems to come up in various forms every other year or so depending on the slate in power.

FYI - Picnic Day is called the largest student run event in the nation because, as far was anyone knows, it is the largest student run one-day open house event in the U.S. When it's sunny Picnic Day attracts between 50,000-60,000 visitors to campus. It'd be kinda cool if someone could scientifically confirm both the "largest student run event" claim and estimate the number of visitors to the next event.

The City of Davis does not co-sponsor Picnic Day. The city doesn't contribute any money, people power, or help with the planning of the event. Bob Bowen, the City Events Manager, is quite helpful but it is suspected that his motivation comes from his fondness for Picnic Day as a UC Davis Alumnus and Picnic Day Student Board Alumnus. The city doesn't do much other than allow the Parade to happen downtown and complaining about the mess and police problems. The merchants of Davis who conduct business on Picnic are the big winners of the day.

—StevenDaubert thinks that the coolest things about picnic day is the police dog show [which I'm pretty sure is now defunct cause the ARC is on the field that the show used to be on] and the weiner dog races that take place in the rec hall

—TomAbeles The copper doggers are still shown, they do them on the ultimate field behind the new tennis courts near the MU.

—StevenLee As someone who has served both in ASUCD and Picnic Day, it is frustrating when certain factions in ASUCD refuse to fund or increase funding for Picnic Day. Sure there is a lot of drinking on campus, but Picnic Day is not merely a huge party. It is the annual open house for the campus. Alot of prospective students come to visit on Picnic Day and indeed more than a few decide to come because they get a good feel of the campus from Picnic Day. Other than the CoHo, Unitrans and the commercial units, Picnic Day is the most efficient ASUCD event/program. When you consider how much money other ASUCD units such as Entertainment Council or various programmatic commissions gets (over $70,000 for EC) and the number of people who attend those events they pale in comparison. Picnic Day only gets around $15K-$20K from ASUCD to put on a campus-wide event that more than 100,000 people attend. That's pretty good. Also, for those who are very "socially-oriented", Picnic Day is a great way to showcase the university and a great recruiting tool. Additionally, considering that the event has jumped from 50,000 to 100,000 in a relatively short period of time and has resulted in a rising costs to put on the event, ASUCD funding for Picnic Day barely keeps up with the increase in inflation. It is not for a lack of money. Other units, which affect far less people have been created (and sometimes disbanded) or given larger budgets in a significantly short time in comparison to Picnic Day . Although this certainly raises another issue that I do not wish to debate here, but just purely as an example Lobby Corp which was created in 2002 has gone from a budget of $6,000 to a budget of over $25,000 in just a few years. In addition, ASUCD does not even pay for a majority of the cost and they are always talking about how they want everything student-run. As you can tell, I am very passionate about this particular topic. So I hope that ASUCD stops giving Picnic Day so much trash and recognizes the benefit of Picnic Day. Picnic Day is THE oldest ASUCD unit and it will outlast everything else. It is a solid event that deserves its fair share.