Instead of participating in a homecoming rally this past Friday, budget cuts that hit homecoming rally sponsors forced students and alumni to seek an alternative to the traditional pre-game celebration.

The cost of producing a homecoming rally is an estimated $10,000, said Kyle Fuller, director of programming for ASUW. The rally was cut after sponsors decided to move funds to other parts of the celebration.

So in lieu of the homecoming rally, UW students and alumni met in the HUB to participate in a homecoming-themed HUB Crawl.

However, the HUB Crawl did not replicate the usual activities of past homecoming rallies in full.

“It was not in any way a replacement for the homecoming rally because we did not really incorporate the same elements of what they did, other than announcing the homecoming royalty,” said Kirk Heynen, student activities adviser for the Student Activities Office.

A traditional homecoming celebration would have consisted of a rally in Red Square, accompanied by student-group competitions, pep talks by the Husky football coach, and the announcement of the homecoming student-royalty winners. This year, the homecoming-royalty scholarships of $1,000 awarded during Saturday’s game against Oregon were nearly all that remained of that tradition.

Fuller believes that the new setting may have improved the homecoming experience for students.

“I’ve been to a lot of student rallies [as a junior at the UW], and all the ones I’ve been to celebrated the football team, which is fantastic, but I think we should also celebrate more about UW,” Fuller said. “[The HUB Crawl] is like a carnival because there are a lot of student groups [involved], and that’s more the feel we wanted.”

Junior Hang Nguyen attended the homecoming-themed HUB Crawl but maintained that she preferred the homecoming rallies she has seen in the past two years.

“I think a rally would have been more effective in boosting up morale for the homecoming game,” Nguyen said. “This is just another activity at the HUB. It’s not as loud as it could be or as exciting as it could be.”

For about the past six years, the homecoming rally has been funded by organizations such as the UW Alumni Association and the UW Department of Intercollegiate Athletics, among others.

“Considering the significant reductions that both the Alumni Association and the athletic department have had in budgets and staffing, both parties talked that out and decided that resources would be better used on other homecoming services,” said Derek Belt, public information specialist of the Alumni Association.

While there was no official production of a homecoming rally this year, the Husky Marching Band continued its tradition of hosting a pep rally the Friday night before a home game. The rally led by the band stops to perform in front of north-campus dorms, fraternity and sorority houses and ends in Red Square.

Rica Mackert, a senior and piccolo player for the marching band, said that she was disappointed when she learned there would not be a homecoming rally this year.

“[The band] look[s] forward to it every year,” Mackert said. “You’re out in Red Square, you’re up on the steps, you get to play under all the lights, and you see all these people there. I miss [that].”

If the budget improves, the homecoming rally may return in the future.

“There’s always a possibility of the homecoming rally returning,” Belt said in an e-mail, “but at this point, no one knows.”

Reach reporter Joanna Nolasco at news@dailyuw.com.