Students gathered around one of the flipped cars from Chitt Fest 2021. Credit: Carl Kreamer
As Chittenden Avenue’s annual block party — Chitt Fest — draws near, residents hope to maintain a fun, but safe, celebration after the events of Chitt Fest 2021 turned violent.
“Give Chitt Fest a second chance,” Charlie McDermott, a third-year in sport industry and resident of Chittenden Avenue, said for Saturday’s event. In 2021, Chitt Fest was deemed a riot by the Columbus Division of Police, with seven cars destroyed and attendees attempting to steal a street sign. After the spring game, when the Ohio State football team holds a scrimmage at the Ohio Stadium, over 1,000 people gathered on Chittenden Avenue, resulting in flipped cars and Columbus Police helicopters being called in.
This year, Chittenden residents like McDermott are hoping individuals attend the event with good intentions.
“Based on the last two years, I’ve had two different experiences. I think we’re sort of finally heading back to that normal Chitt Fest kind of vibe,” McDermott said. “When you check it out again, just come in with good intentions, because I don’t think anybody wants to car flip. I don’t think anybody wants random people coming into their house.”
McDermott said he expects this year’s Chitt Fest to be a fun environment. Although Chitt Fest was quiet in 2022, McDermott said he is looking for a happy medium this year.
“It was two different environments between my sophomore year and my freshman year,” McDermott said. “You obviously don’t want things to get out of hand, but you also want people that don’t live on Chitt to feel welcome, because this is a university thing.”
McDermott said he remembers exactly when Chitt Fest turned into a free-for-all in 2021.
“I was at one of these duplexes with a white railing and a porch. I just heard something crack. It was just a bunch of people, maybe a football field down, just trying to move a car, and I was totally confused, but it piqued my interest,” McDermott said.
McDermott said he and his friends left 30-45 minutes before the first car was flipped, but said the events from Chitt Fest 2021 are the reason why he paid for a parking spot on Indianola Avenue this year.
McDermott said his plan for Chitt Fest this year is to invite all of his friends to his house and spend some time with them. He said for Ohio State seniors, this is their last hurrah before the annual bar crawl May 2.
“We’re all different years, and we’re all graduating at different points, so to sort of build that sense of family and sense of community is going to be pretty important,” McDermott said. “That’s why I wanted to live on Chitt, was to sort of be able to host that kind of thing.”
Andre Arman, a third-year in criminology and resident of Chittenden Avenue, said he has a good feeling about Chitt Fest 2023.
Arman said he thinks there will be more individuals at Chitt Fest this year because it’s after the spring game.
“I’m hoping that it’ll be better than last year in terms of the number of people that attend,” Arman said. “You don’t want it to get too rowdy to the point of where it was a couple of years ago. Columbus Police will be there so honestly, I have pretty good hopes.”
Arman said he has not attended Chitt Fest in the past, but he hosted a party at his house for “Chitt Show” in October 2022, an event similar to Chitt Fest that usually attracts a smaller crowd.
“It was just a lot of people standing on our lawn. People playing die, people playing pong. There were some cops that posted up near where we were, and it was actually pretty cool,” Arman said. “The people that we were hanging out with went up to them and started talking to them and just having a good time. I remember seeing people taking pictures with them and stuff.”
Arman said for people unfamiliar with Chitt Fest, he describes it as a big block party for the whole street to get together to have a good time.
“In a way, it’s not like the typical, you know, weekend of going out or going to parties,” Arman said.
With big block parties like Chitt Fest comes a lot of trash. Arman said he plans on doing his part to keep empty cans off his lawn.
“A big part of it for me is doing your own parts and not trashing [Chittenden] in the first place. I know a lot of people kind of just don’t care and throw their empty cans on the ground on their lawn,” Arman said. “I like to just not do that, and I’m just gonna try and limit that.”
