Working with Festival Organizers to Reduce Binge Drinking in a Midwestern Community

Binge drinking is a major public health threat in the United States. Community festivals provide an opportunity for binge drinking to occur nearly every summer weekend in our community, where there have been over 10 alcohol-related drownings and numerous serious injuries in the past decade. In 2010 and 2011, we conducted evaluations of 19 festivals in our community, using volunteers to evaluate the use of 12 specific strategies related to preventing underage or binge alcohol consumption. Each strategy was given a score from 1 to 3 (1-not met, 2 -inconsistently met, 3-fully met). Scores were summed and standardized on a scale from 33.3 to 100. Total number of strategies “fully met” was also determined. After the first year's evaluation, we reviewed the results with festival organizers. After discussing each strategy and our findings, we discussed ways the festival could adopt safer practices and share ideas among festival organizers. The average score increased from 68.4 to 74.3. In 2010 an average of 4.2 strategies were fully met. In 2011, this had increased to 5.2 strategies. There were improvements in offerings of food and non-alcoholic beverages in the beer tents, fewer servers drinking, and more consistent use of wrist bands and ID checking. Limiting serving size and restricting alcohol sales to a designated location were strategies less frequently adopted. Continued efforts in future years are necessary. We've initially pursued a voluntary adoption of strategies to build support for the acceptance of future policies that will be pursued as conditions on alcohol licenses.