Red Bull event planned by Team Up, not intended as campaign event

Tiffany Frandsen | Deputy Managing Editor | @tiffany_mf

 

There will be a Red Bull bonfire on the new Geneva land west of I-15 on Tuesday, Mar. 3. The event was instigated by Josh Anderson, the campaign marketing manager for Team Up, but Team Up has denied that it is a campaign event.

UVU is a Pepsi campus, but the team went through the proper channels to get the Red Bull approved for the event, according to Tyler Brklacich, current UVUSA president.

All marketing that Team Up had done has been taken offline.

“It’s a Red Bull pro bono event, and we’re going to be there, but Red Bull is taking responsibility for everything,” said Cristobal Villegas, candidate for executive vice president for Team Up.

The event had been marketed as a bonfire with a “call to action during the climax of the event to get people to vote,” but initial promotion of the event neglected to disclose the relationship to Team Up. They have since taken down the promotions and deleted the Facebook post.

“We don’t plan on making a big announcement or anything. Students will be there, so we’re planning on talking to students,” said Villegas. “Everyone is invited… if Team One showed up, they could say whatever they want as well.”

Villegas said they are not giving speeches at the event or marketing it as a Team Up event because it is something that hasn’t been done before and they don’t want to risk something out of their control violating campaign regulations.

“We’re going into uncharted waters, so we want to be as conservative as we can,” said Villegas. “We’re not Ones or Ups, we’re UVU students.”

Team Up presidential candidate Mike Wade declined to comment on the event and directed all questions to Villegas.

“Cristobal is usually the one to handle all of those things. He manages the team,” said Wade.

Red Bulls on campus are one of the campaign promises that Team Up has made, along with a Redbox on campus and better toilet paper. All of those ideas came in through a request for input via Facebook.

“This is what we’re trying to do. We’re actively trying to do what the students want us to do,” said Wade. “We’ll take that input and we’ll write it down and we’ll do our best to make sure the students are being represented, but we can’t promise anything.”