This year’s African American Heritage Festival was changed to reduce the possibility of campus disturbances, but other weekend events may still cause problems.

The biggest changes are that the festival is scheduled one month earlier than in previous years, and all the events will be held indoors.

“The student organizers have been very direct about their intentions to make this a week that will be celebrated on and by the Ohio State campus,” said Belinda Higgs, interim coordinator for the Office of African American Student Services. “They moved the festival to April to reduce the number of students attending from area colleges who end their semesters in May.”

The cruising that has become a traditional weekend occurrence during the Heritage Festival has caused major traffic problems in the past, said Sherry Mercurio, spokeswoman for the Columbus Division of Police.

“For us it’s not an issue of the festival. We’ve never had a problem with the event itself,” Mercurio said. “But because of cruising, the businesses on High Street suffer and traffic gets backed up all the way to downtown.”

Police will try to keep traffic moving, and an alternate traffic plan will be put into effect if necessary.

Heritage Festival student chairwoman Angela Woody was concerned that attendees of the festival were not aware of its focus in the past few years. This is one reason why the festival’s theme of “family” is so important.

“We want the OSU and Columbus community to really enjoy the festival this year and understand the true meaning of it,” Woody said. “It’s more than just the block party as many have come to know it.”

Columbus police will have an increased presence on campus not only because of traffic concerns, but also because of OSU’s annual spring football game and Chittfest – the unofficial, annual block party held on Chittenden Avenue.

A crowd of 45,000 is expected to attend the football game, which is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Saturday. Heritage Festival organizers do not anticipate the game to cause problems because it is so early in the day.

Of more concern to Columbus police are riots that have occurred during Chittfest in the last few years. They plan to take whatever safety measures are necessary.

“Our officers won’t be out in riot gear right away, but if people are throwing rocks and bottles at our officers and it becomes a dangerous situation, they will go to riot gear at that point,” Mercurio said.

Randy Bowen, an undecided sophomore who has seen spring riots on campus in previous years, hopes this year will be different.

“I know that this stuff happens every year,” Bowen said. “But after what we saw with the Michigan game riots and after the recent fire on 17th Avenue, you would think that people would give it a rest. Unfortunately, kids still get drunk and make bad choices no matter what.”