Sun God (Festival)

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The Sun God Festival is an annual music festival at the University of California, San Diego that usually takes place the sixth week of the spring quarter. Put on by the Associated Students Programming office and paid for by the students with an "activity fee" assessed to tuition, the festival is marked by a festival/fair during the day and a concert at night on RIMAC field, usually featuring a mix of underground/indie bands and one or two headlining mainstream groups. The concert is traditionally kicked off by the winner of the Battle of the Bands at UCSD.^[1]

In recent years the concert has headlined groups such as Ludacris, Busta Rhymes, Social Distortion and most recently, My Chemical Romance.

The festival's name references the Sun God, an on-campus statue, and the first festival coincided with the statue's arrival in 1983. The festival's original location was adjacent to the statue, but it has since moved numerous times, from Price Center to the now-demolished Mile High Field, to its current location on the RIMAC field.

The festival and concert provide an excuse for students on what many consider a socially dead campus^[2] to finally let loose following their midterms with binge drinking, psychoactive substance abuse, and public displays of affection ^[3].

The festival/fair portion of Sun God consists of booths made for the most part by student organizations. Booths are organized into food, information, game, etc. The best booths in their respective categories are awarded cash prizes. The UCSD student organization, The Koala, is the most recent winner winning best SunGod game booth in 2005 and 2006 with a cash prize of $200 ^[4]. In addition to the booths the festival/fair portions of SunGod holds a traditional junkyard down hill race, where students, faculty, and any combination of the two can form groups to create downhill racers made from old/junkyard parts.

The administration has recently (since 2004) been cracking down more and more on Sungod by hiring volunteers and cops from other counties to go undercover and ticket students violating the drug and alcohol policy.^{[citation needed]}