Communiversity to take place on Sunday, not Saturday, this year

The Communiversity Festival of the Arts, presented by the Arts Council of Princeton, will take place on Sunday, April 28, instead of on a Saturday, when the event has traditionally been held. This change has increased the event’s costs because workers need to be paid for overtime.

Communiversity was moved to Sunday at the request of Princeton merchants, according to Jeff Nathanson, the executive director of the Arts Council.

“[The Princeton merchants] thought it would probably be better for business to have a lot of people coming downtown on Sunday rather than Saturday,” Nathanson said. “We realized that there might be some issues with that with the churches and the town, and we decided it was worth exploring.”

Director of Community and Regional Affairs Kristin Appelget said that Saturday is generally a big day for business in the downtown, and Communiversity normally draws a crowd of approximately 40,000 who come primarily for the event. She also explained that merchants who do not participate directly in Communiversity say they see a dip in sales during the event.

Princeton merchants noted that major events generally organized by the Palmer Square Management — which oversees businesses and events in Palmer Square — that have been held on Sundays, such as JazzFeast, have not seen this same dip in sales as businesses not participating in Communiversity do on Saturday, Appelget said.

“In an effort to be responsive to that concern, the Arts Council started a discussion ... right around the time that we finished with the last [Communiversity] to start to think about whether or not we could hold the event on a Sunday rather than on a Saturday.”

The Arts Council contacted various parties, including officials from the town and University and representatives from the Princeton Merchants Association and the Princeton Clergy Association to evaluate the pros and cons of moving the event to Sunday, according to Nathanson. He said there was an overwhelmingly response in favor of changing the day.

Communiversity is a University-town collaboration, but there are two tracks of events, campus and town, funded separately by the appropriate entities, Nathanson said. The Arts Council of Princeton covers town expenses using corporate sponsorship, booth fees and ticket sales, while USG funds the University’s event-related expenses.

This year’s USG budget for Communiversity is $7,600, an increase from the allotted $5,000 last year, according to USG Campus and Community Affairs chair Trap Yates ’14.

Yates is a former associate editor for the Street section of The Daily Princetonian.

“The primary driver behind that decision was just that the event was traditionally more expensive than the budget allotment has been, so last year we could have used the extra money anyway,” Yates explained.

The shift from Saturday to Sunday will increase labor costs for the University, Yates said.

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“We might be shifting around who we hire to do what when, so I don’t know what the net change will be,” he said. “I just know it’s made it something that we need to be more conscious about with overtime pay.”

These labor costs pay employees of University Building Services, Public Safety and the attendant at the dunk tank, Yates said.