Students are not the only ones gearing up for the weekend. Local businesses and policing forces have been planning and preparing strategies to deal with the additional people expected on campus for Green Key Weekend.
Now that the weekend is finally here, their masterminded stratagems will be put through the battery of tests that is Green Key Weekend.
Stephen Colanero, general manager of Molly's Balloon, said they would be "batting down the hatches and preparing for the onslaught."
Local businesses and the Hanover Police, stressed the importance of having enough staff for the weekend.
"The only thing that we do," Hanover Police Captain Chris O'Connor said, "is that we know it's going to be really active, and we want to make sure we're properly staffed."
"Normally because of the amount of people it attracts from other schools," he said, "there's always the increased possibility that you're going to deal with more persons."
"With such areas of alcohol use and consumption and intoxication -- some of these types of incidents can be time-consuming," O'Connor said.
"The only thing that we do is just know when the high times are, the times that you're going to have the highest rates of incidents, which is normally anywhere from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m," he said.
"It's a busy weekend," Sergeant. Mark Lancaster of Safety and Security said. "Alcohol related incidents are escalated on that weekend."
Lancaster said Safety and Security dispatches officers to events as requested by the events office.
Crime Prevention officer Rebel Roberts will distribute flyers and information about precautions students should take over the weekend, Lancaster added.
Aside from the influx of people and increased sales volumes, however, most local businesses are not expecting changes in the attitudes of customers.
Maureen Dowd, manager of Everything But Anchovies, said they did "nothing out of the ordinary" in preparation for the weekend.
They do, however, make sure they have "a lot more staff," and especially "a lot more drivers" for the weekend.
Like EBAs, Stinson's Village Store does not do "anything unusual" to prepare for the weekend, according to Sheila Stinson.
"We just make sure we get plenty of sleep because it's a wild week," she said, adding that the level of activity on Green Key Weekend varies from year to year.
"We just go with the flow," Stinson said. "It all depends on the weather, just like Homecoming and Winter Carnival."
"It's really weird -- some years it's good, some years it's bad," Colanero said. "Green Key used to be really, really big. Recently, it's been fluctuating. Hopefully if the weather holds out, it'll be nice."
Dowd said he thinks it is getting bigger every year.
"Green Key Weekend is "probably getting bigger than Winter Carnival because the weather is much nicer," he said.
Lancaster disagreed. "I've been here for 12 years. Things are not as busy as they were years ago."
Sonya Campbell, owner of Hanover Hardware, said, "We've found in recent years the whole impact of it has not been what it has been in the past."
"We used to sell tons of bar supplies and stuff like that," Campbell said, "but that's kind of just died down. People are a lot more conscious about how much they're drinking."
Dave Cioffi, general manager of the Dartmouth Bookstore, agreed that the weather was a major factor in determining the outcome of the weekend.
According to Cioffi, inclement weather often increased the number of people who sought shelter indoors, including places like the bookstore.
"Those are the kinds of weekends, [where] if it rains we get really busy. If the sun shines it won't be so good," he said, adding that he hoped the weather would be nice anyway.
"It's usually a pretty big weekend," Cioffi added. "We have to staff a little heavy."
"It's not a Winter Carnival," he said, but Green Key Weekend is usually 25 percent better than normal weekends for the bookstore.
"You're going to sell more things about the College," Cioffi said, regarding preparations for the storeroom. "Anything that says Dartmouth will do really well."
