Between a world-class beach volleyball tournament, the Poly Royal Rodeo and one of the biggest events of the year, Open House, the campus of Cal Poly will be busy this weekend.
With thousands of vehicles and more than 10,000 visitors, the Cal Poly campus will see a lot more traffic than usual.
“It's certainly a high impact, but exciting time for us here," said Cal Poly Manager of Public Safety Business Services Takuto Doshiro.
To make sure everything goes smoothly, road closures will be in place on California Boulevard Friday morning and Grand Avenue on Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon to help the flow of traffic. There will also be a variety of transportation services through SLO Transit, RTA and Mustang Shuttle. Doshiro says it's all to accommodate the big-time events happening for Open House.
“There'll be other closures throughout campus on minor roads just to help ease the vehicle traffic and make sure that pedestrians have a safe right of travel,” he said.
In conjunction with Open House is the Cal Poly Center of Effort Beach Volleyball Challenge and a home baseball series. The annual Poly Royal Rodeo will also hold its third and fourth performances.
“It's intentional that we're the same weekend as Open House," Cal Poly Rodeo media manager Anna Grace Durham explained. "It's just kind of getting to add to the festivities of the weekend.”
This year, they added a fourth performance to accommodate the record sellout crowds and it also gives more rodeo student-athletes the chance to compete. But above all else, the university is valuing safety with more than 3,000 people expected to be in attendance for both Friday and Saturday’s rodeo performances.
“A lot of logistics that go into it from road closures to what our security is going to be at every gate," Durham said. "But truly, our priority is to make sure that everybody is safe."
Cal Poly Open House and Poly Royal both wrap up Saturday while beach volleyball and Cal Poly baseball continue through Sunday. The Cal Poly Tractor Pull is Sunday, April 13, at 1 p.m.
Cal Poly Baseball plays Hawaii on Friday at 6 p.m., Saturday at 3 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m.
#3 Cal Poly Beach Volleyball plays #5 Stanford on Friday at 12:30 p.m and #6 University of Southern California at 7 p.m. and on Saturday plays #7 Florida State at 11:30 p.m.
