Effects of good weather, USC break on attendance not clear
Shortly after noon Saturday, Jayna Doyle posed a question to a crowd congregated in the intersection of Harden and Greene streets.
“So who’s drunk yet?” shouted Doyle, the lead singer of local rock group Death of Paris.
She was met with cheering.
It was St. Pat’s in Five Points, Columbia’s annual all-day street party in honor of Ireland’s patron saint, and the green-tinted beverages flowed — and not just Chick-fil-A’s festive green lemonade.
But the day was still young, and for the most part, things had been fairly quiet.
At least that’s what Winta Adams and Joe Loveridge, a pair of paramedics working at the festival, thought.
In the middle of the day, hours after their shifts started at 6 a.m., they were sitting behind an ambulance by the fountain enjoying a lull. Loveridge, who hadn’t worked the St. Pat’s festival before, availed himself of a turkey leg.
Adams, who had, didn’t expect the calm to last long.
“At about 2 o’clock, we’ll probably really be jumping around,” she said.
Come 2 p.m., as the once-navigable streets of Five Points were packing in, their chairs were empty. Elsewhere, lines — for entry to the festival, for the ATM, for drinks — grew and meandered in and outside the area.
Just how many people turned out for the festival wasn’t immediately clear, but it was doubtless boosted by clear skies and warm weather, and hampered, perhaps, by taking place at the end of USC’s spring break.
Still, some students, like Ryan Snyder, said they’d trekked back to Columbia early to make it.
The second-year public relations student opted to come to town Saturday morning from a trip to Charleston.
She was part of a sea of green that left Adams and Loveridge sticking out with their white uniforms.
Partygoers donned green, Mohawk wigs and green, pint-glass hats, blew on green vuvuzelas, ate green funnel cakes, took green Jell-O shots from big syringes, used green portable toilets and sported dyed facial hair.
Mike Malandrino fit squarely in the latter group.
The 51-year-old Gaston native volunteered for the Military Vehicle Club of South Carolina and poured beer on Saluda Avenue.
It was his first time doing so, and he’d colored his beard for the occasion. He said he wasn’t sure how long it would take to get the dye out.
“If it doesn’t come out, I’ll have to shave it off,” Malandrino said as he gestured dragging a razor across his face.
It may have been the one day each year Malandrino’s bright green scruff would blend right in. It was tame in comparison to some of the outfits wandering around Five Points.
Brandon Crisp, a fourth-year graphic design student at Francis Marion University, said he came from Florence to enjoy a night on the town Friday before the festival. He came prepared with a festive hat that featured can holders and straws, along with a green blazer and tie.
Some stood out with only a T-shirt, like one man who stood at the intersection of Harden and Devine streets holding three tallboys stacked atop each other and a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
For Chris Oxner, 43, of Columbia, dressing up has become something of a tradition. His getups have made him such a personality at the festival that this year, in exchange for a photo, he asked for a $1 donation to Pawmetto Lifeline, a Columbia animal shelter.
Each of the past four or five years, he’s pieced together an ensemble that included a green wig, rainbow suspenders, silver earrings and a green-and-gold shawl.
New this year, he added an oversized, sparkling leprechaun hat with matching cuffs and boots.
“It’s a little bit recycled,” Oxner said. “I add a little extra something or take away a little extra something each year.”
Check out more photos from Saturday’s festival on The Daily Gamecock’s Facebook page.