Much as Safer Sex Night was altered in October in response to concerns of safety, this Saturday’s annual Drag Ball will be a little different from what Obies may remember. The two major changes will be the absence of the Tent of Consent and the implementation of an age minimum for prospective students and outside of Oberlin guests wishing to attend.

“The event has come under a lot of scrutiny over the past four years,” said Chris Baymiller, assistant director of Student Union.

The negative attention has been due to an unfortunate incident four years ago when a staff member was allegedly raped by another staff member.

“Interestingly enough it had nothing to do with students, but it just provided an opportunity for the College attorneys to look into the event more,” Baymiller said.

He ran the event for 10 years but because of changes in his schedule for the past three years it has been organized by an ad hoc committee run mostly by students.

“I understand where the College is coming from a liability point of view and it is my job to enforce this decision,” Baymiller said.

He went on to point out that in previous years there had been many high school-aged students from the community coming to the event. He explained, “It was seen as a safe place to participate in this sort of event. One year my entire 16-year-old little league team attended.”

Yet Baymiller agreed that there has to be a cut-off line that defines “how young is young” and 18 is the adult age by the law.

The other issue, involving the permanent removal of the Tent of Consent, caused more controversy.

“The Tent of Consent had been controversial since the moment it came up,” Baymiller said.

College attorneys saw that from a liability standpoint there are potential difficulties with the existence of the Tent.

“The whole program was put into place to educate about consent so it’s ironic that it is perceived as a liability problem,” Baymiller said.

According to senior Andy Monk, who is also one of the organizers of the event, not many people knew that Drag Ball also had a Tent of Consent because it was not the central event. Yet in his opinion the “Tent of Consent is an important Oberlin tradition because the emphasis on consent is also important.” He said he is hoping that with continued dialogue between students and the administration the Tent can come back, but expressed doubts that this will happen with the “recent direction taken by the administration.

“Oh, we are canceling the London program, oh, by the way, you are not having a Tent of Consent, oh, and no educational pornographic materials will be projected on the walls,” Monk said, expressing his view on the events that have unfolded in the past academic year.

“There is no way it’s coming back, it’s gone for good,” Baymiller said. “From Fall 2004 the Tent of Consent no longer exists.”

Monk also talked about the financial shortage that Drag Ball had to deal with this year. In his opinion, this is a way to put restrictions on the event, as this year funding has decreased or has been cut from various sources.

“We had celebrity judges last year and they said we wasted a lot of money so this year they are not going to give us as much,” he said.

Three years ago the budget set aside for the event was $10,000; last year it was $8,000; this year it went down to $5,000.

“The ticket sales account for the majority of our revenue which is why ticket prices are so high,” Monk explained. “Drag Ball is not trying to make a million dollars, we’re just trying to break even. Sometimes we don’t.”

The main cost comes from student labor and so far Drag Ball has used 330 student hours with a mere four days to go before the event itself.

“People don’t know how much Drag Ball costs and when I tell them [they] say ‘Wow, you can put a child through college with this,’” Monk said. “Yes, you can,” he added, “or you can have a really fantastic party.”