It’s probably one of the city’s biggest reunions — every fall, thousands flock to the Queen’s campus for homecoming weekend.
Many alumni already have a game plan like 1977 mining engineering graduate Dave Passfield.
“We’re going to the football game for sure. We’re going over to the engineers’ pub — our year’s having a few little functions.”
Another 1977 mining engineering graduate, Taras Dzuida, says he likes meeting the current generation of students.
“One of the things that we find the most fun is to hang out with the young people, like when we were at the mining building, we stopped in and talked to the students.”
Sarah Indewey with alumni volunteer and relations, says several thousand alumni have already registered. This year’s special focus is on the graduating class years ending in 2s and 7s.
“We have over 3,600 people registered to attend this weekend and they’re coming from as far away as Australia, Japan, China.”
Over 70 sanctioned events are planned indoors and out, including the homecoming football game between the Gaels and York Lions, along with the halftime parade. There’s also the reunion street festival and an outdoor concert.
Co-ordinator Alexandra da Silva says it was a big job keeping this year’s headliner a secret.
“We have our big headliner Serena Ryder this year coming on … so we’re really excited about that. We just announced that mystery announcement.”
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Kingston police are also gearing up for a busy weekend, as homecoming has a history of unsanctioned street parties.
Though police have said the festivities have been tamer in recent years, it’s expected 70 officers will be patrolling the university district on Friday night, and up to 160 on Saturday.
“We do have a plan in place,” says Kingston police Staff Sgt. Chris Scott.
“We’re going to see a great deal of police officers starting today until 5 p.m., running right through until the wee hours of the morning on Sunday.”
Along with a noticeable presence at homecoming, Scott says they’ve also done a lot of preventative work leading up to this weekend.
“We went to over 100 student residences in the past few weeks and just let them know the risks they run when they have these large unsanctioned keg parties,” he said.
Police will also be watching for a trend that started in frosh week — “pancake keggers” — that get started first thing in the morning.
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