Over the past few years, the University of Maine has had its share of controversial student entertainment events.

Dayglow, the event characterized by electronic music, shots of paint and somewhat hedonistic behavior by the attendees, let loose a chaotic evening of brawling and intoxication-related ambulance transports when it came to the Field House in April 2012.

This past weekend, Pretty Lights was hosted by Student Entertainment and did not disappoint in terms of controversy. After the opening act, Dean of Students Robert Dana took the stage and ordered roughly a thousand students off the floor and back to their seats. Many have judged this reaction harshly.

True, Dana issued an ultimatum by stating that the event would not continue unless students returned to their seats. And perhaps his gruffness, contrasted with 3LAU’s profanity-laced entreaty to the attendees to take their seats so they could ‘rage,’ made Dana appear more like a draconian administrator attempting to crush the free-spirited jubilance of students’ Friday night, but the context of the event is important.

With the nightmare of Dayglow in the memory of both campus security and university administration, Dana’s reaction is perhaps understandable. The best way to maintain an environment in which students could both have fun and be safe is to maintain order. Once one variable, such as the spirit of the students on the floor, becomes unmanageable, other factors are more and more lively to spiral out of control.

In 2003, a fire started at the Station Nightclub in Providence, R.I. by pyrotechnics killed 100 people. Poorly labeled exits and an above-capacity crowd were major contributors to the tragic inability of attendees to escape the burning building.

While it’s highly unlikely that such a thing could ever happen at an event hosted by Student Entertainment, as special scrutiny is given to student safety by UMPD: when situations get out of hand, anything can happen.

Overcrowding of the floor at the Pretty Lights concert could have ended in a deadly stampede had an emergency occurred. And even if fire wasn’t a huge concern, medical emergencies were. It would be foolish to deny that drinking went on before the event, and had someone passed out from alcohol poisoning, a loud, boisterous crowd would have hindered medical personnel’s ability to detect an emergency. Why take that chance when the consequences are so sobering?

These are all sobering thoughts, but its important to remember, the organizers of campus-sponsored events, like the Pretty Lights concert, are primarily concerned with student safety. Yes, they want everyone to have fun, but not if a riotous atmosphere leads to injury. Concertgoers do not have these concerns; they are there solely to enjoy themselves and so, perhaps any attempt to channel their energies is seen as an imposition. Maybe so. But if a student had died, how much greater would the criticism of the university administration be? And how much greater would the tinge of unhappiness settle over those who had attended and realized they had been in a supervised environment whose inattention endangered their well-being?