The Sun God Festival is an annual campus festival at the University of California, San Diego. Its name references Sun God, an on-campus statue by French artist Niki de Saint Phalle. The festival takes place every spring quarter. The main stage is traditionally opened by the winner of the Battle of the Bands, a competition that UC San Diego student musicians perform in leading up to the festival.[1]
The festival is produced by the AS Concerts & Events office and paid for by the student body activity fee. It has featured a vast variety of entertainment elements since its inception, including a cross-campus fair, lounge areas, and multiple stages which have featured art performances, live comedy, student talent, DJ sets, and a mix of underground and commercially successful musical performers.
History
The first Sun God Festival coincided with the one-year anniversary of Sun God's arrival in 1984.[2][3] The festival's original location was adjacent to the statue, but it has since grown and moved numerous times, from Price Center to the now-demolished Mile High Field, eventually finding a more permanent home at its current location on RIMAC field.
During spring quarter of 2016, the Associated Students of UC San Diego ran a fee referendum to increase the student activity fee, which is the primary source of funding for the event. The new funding was meant to replace the festival's guest ticket revenue, which was lost when guests presented increased liabilities to student safety at the event. The student body overwhelmingly supported this fee increase in order to preserve the festival's tradition, passing the referendum by a margin of nearly 40 percent.[4]
In 2018, Associated Students replaced the headlining act, Blackbear, with Roy Woods, when blackbear cancelled on account of a series of pancreatic attacks.[5] In 2020, the Sun God Festival was among the many public events cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, over concerns that the virus could spread quickly at large gatherings such as concerts.[6]
In 2025, the EDM artist Wooli was originally set to be the headliner for Sun God Festival. Several days before the event was set to take place, the artist dropped out of the event and any mention of him attending was removed from the Sun God Festival website.[7] AS Concerts & Events confirmed on Instagram that he would not be headlining for "unforeseen circumstances", but some students speculated it was due to the student population being upset and vocal at the disappointment of the choice of headliner.[8]
Many members of campus, including police, administrators, student planners, and university staff work throughout the year to support the event, as it presents unique challenges due to its scale and culture. In recent years, the festival has often been used as a platform to promote safety initiatives, such as bystander intervention peer workshops, alcohol and drug education, and sexual assault awareness.[9]
Controversies
Alcohol and Drug Abuse Hospitalizations
Due to the number of students who were being hospitalized from alcohol and drug abuse at the festival, including a "handful" of attendees experiencing "near death" hospitalizations in 2013,[10] students and administrators opted to eliminate guest tickets and increase safety measures, such as the implementation of on-site medical care to reduce the amount of hospitalizations.[11] These changes saw a decrease in hospitalizations from 48 to 8 from 2013 to 2014.[12]
In 2014, a student who attended Sun God Festival was found dead in his dormitory after the event. The autopsy revealed that the death was caused by an overdose of the drug 5-APB.[13][14] This death caused further security measures to be implemented, such as pat-downs for attendees.[15]
In 2015, alcohol usage at the festival increased by 45 percent.[16] The increased security measures and loss of guest ticket revenues have also been a severe detriment to the event budget, which affected future lineups. Additionally, since 2019, students living on-campus are not allowed to house guests during the weekend of Sun God Festival, and non-affiliates are not allowed in residential areas.[17]
2024 Festival Cancellation
In 2024, the Sun God Festival was set to take place on Saturday, May 4, 2024, but was ultimately announced to be cancelled two days prior with the reason cited as security concerns caused by the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on campus.[18][19] However, numerous Associated Students members at the time expressed concerns with the cited reason, claiming the cancellation was made in retaliation by the university and a deliberate attempt to pit students against one another.[20]
AS Concerts & Events Backlash
In 2022, Associated Students Concerts & Events received significant amounts of backlash over the choice of headliners not being representative of student interests. In 2023, AS Concerts & Events responded to the concerns by creating a video responding to falsified comments. After backlash, the video was deleted from their social media a day later. [21][22]
Lineup
2009 Sun God Festival - view from Main Stage2009 Sun God Festival - Girl Talk headlining the Dance Tent
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
