The new UF bandshell will be ready for the Fourth of July, but there won't be any fireworks to welcome it.
For the first time since 1990, the annual Fanfare and Fireworks display has been scrapped.
The event usually features live music followed by fireworks at the Flavet Field bandshell on the night before Independence Day.
Organizers couldn't raise enough money to make it happen this year.
Funding was short last year, too, but after organizers announced its cancellation, an anonymous donor saved the show by donating about $30,000, said Larry Dankner, general manager of WRUF and WUFT, which usually help organize the event.
The City of Gainesville also shelled out $6,000.
Though UF's new bandshell won't host any Fourth of July festivities this year, the new structure will likely drive down costs for future shows Dankner said.
Now that organizers won't have to rent a stage, the price tag could be about $10,000 lighter than the usual $35,000 to $45,000 pricetag, Dankner said.
When all is said and done, the new bandshell is expected to cost about $850,000. About half the money will come from the Capital Improvement Trust Fund, which is supported by student fees at state universities, and the other half will come from UF's Activity & Service Fee, paid by UF students' tuition.
The bandshell began as a $20,000 idea for an outdoor on-campus concert venue in 1975.
Costs ballooned to more than $150,000 as the project unfolded, prompting questions about the necessity of the venue, according to Alligator archives.
Construction began in 1978 and was completed in 1980, though the first concerts were held there in the fall of 1979.
The original bandshell, designed by two UF grad students, was torn down in March after it became unusable because of rotting wood and termite damage in the roof, said project manager Miles Albertson.
Concerns about the safety of the structure were nothing new, though.
Soon after it was built, a UF professor told the Alligator the wood was already beginning to rot and wouldn't last five years unless it was treated.
In response, Student Government hired a company to treat the wood, forking over about $10,000.
Though there have been rumors that the old A-frame roof was actually from a Howard Johnson, Alligator articles from the time of its construction don't support that notion.
Ed Poppell, UF's vice president for Business Affairs, also discounts the idea.
"(S)afe to say it was built for this structure even though it was a unique roof," he wrote in an e-mail.
The new metal roof is flat.
Though the bandshell might be new and improved, some question whether it was necessary.
Danielle Panagos, who graduated from UF in May, said she thinks the cost is too high, especially when UF is cutting its state-funded budget by about $42 million.
"There's probably a million other places that money could go," she said.
Panagos compared the structure to UF's proposal to install hand scanners at the gyms.
"It's not really necessary," she said.
