Around 20 out of 41 UP Fair concessionaires who applied for monetary compensation have already received their settlements, according to UP Fair 2025 Overall Co-head Ciro Quiapos, following merchants’ complaints over mishandling of the annual advocacy music event.
Interviews by Tinig ng Plaridel detail how poor coordination and lack of communication from the organizers left stall owners grappling with heavy losses after the four-day fair. A booth owner reportedly incurred P230,000 in losses, according to a Philippine Collegian report.
However, organizers can only pay about P1,900 each to concessionaires who applied for refunds. Quiapos admitted that this amount is small compared to the losses incurred by merchants, but said it was all they could offer with just an estimated P78,000 left in their total funds, a far cry from the P1.5 million raised by the UP Fair 2024 team.
But the mismanagement of UP Fair 2025 did not only strain its partner concessionaires financially, it also eroded some merchants’ faith in the event’s proclaimed advocacies.
Short-changed
Anne* looked forward to returning to the UP Fair last April not only to earn, but also to support its causes. But after a string of mishaps she blames on the organizers’ “lack of transparency and empathy” to fellow small business owners, she now calls those advocacies hypocritical.
For four nights of UP Fair, Anne shelled out P12,000 per night for rent, excluding expenses for staff and transport from outside Metro Manila. But despite the steep costs, they ended up at a loss as they had to compete with vendors who mounted tents and carts along the Academic Oval.
This was already an issue for some UP Fair concessionaires last year, but organizers said the vendor spaces outside the fairgrounds will be limited only to 15 per side of the Academic Oval and reserved for UP Maninindas.
However, more than 20 stalls were set up in front of Malcolm Hall on the fair’s third day around 4 p.m., based on a video taken by one of the merchants, despite the organizers’ earlier commitment that they would regulate the number of outside vendors.
Over 20 stalls operate along the Academic Oval at 4:14 p.m. on April 4, 2025, based on the metadata of the video obtained by TNP.
“So paano naman kaming nasa loob? Parang kung mayroon nang shawarma sa labas, mas kaya nilang magbaba ng presyo kasi ‘di sila nagbabayad [ng kasing taas na rent],” said Anne, prompting her fellow merchants to raise the issue to the organizers.
Yet the UP Fair team admitted they could not shut down outside vendors despite an earlier commitment to address the concessionaires’ concerns.
For Anne, it felt like a “betrayal” of the very values the fair stood for: “Wala naman kaso sa aming merchants na support ng UP community ang UP manininda […] pero parte din naman kami ng sektor na ipinaglalaban nila.”
“Kasi small business lang kami, as in wala naman kaming kumpanya na may buffer, na kapag nalugi kami, may sasalo sa amin […] Buti sana kung iilan lang ang talo. Eh halos lahat sa amin talo,” Anne added.
UP Fair 2025 Overall Co-head Ciro Quiapos admitted the organizing committee’s lapses in mitigating the number of vendors outside the fairgrounds, pointing to the lack of manpower within the team while some stallholders subleased their spaces to outside merchants.
“At that time, ang kaya lang namin ay sabih[a]n sila about it pero wala naman kaming jurisdiction about the subleasing,” said Quiapos. “Ngayon ‘yung jurisdiction ng labas, ‘yung security personnel that we hired is not enough to cover ‘yung buong oval na para pigilan ang illegal vendors. It is just sufficient to cover the security of our fairgoers inside the fair and doon sa mga gate premises.”
With the surge in unaffiliated vendors already a problem last year, Quiapos said they tried to address it by setting up a rope along the Academic Oval near Vinzons Hall and imposing an earlier no re-entry policy for fairgoers, moving it from midnight to 10 p.m. this year. Such measures were not enough that some merchants absorbed heavy losses.
The vendors suggested right on the first day to impose the no reentry policy for the whole duration of the UP Fair to cope with the losses in the next fair days. However, Quiapos said they cannot outright comply with the requests of the merchants as they have to abide by the published pre-event guidelines to ticketholders.
For Clara*, it was a flimsy excuse that shows the organizers’ lack of empathy toward concessionaires like herself who were just starting out and hoping to jumpstart their business through UP Fair. While they acknowledged the risks of joining bazaars, Clara felt “scammed” by the steep rental fees at the fair, especially after organizers fell short on their promises to merchants.
“Sa totoo lang, hindi na ako sasali sa UP Fair kung ganoon pa rin ‘yung rate,” said Clara. “Na-trauma ako. Ang losses namin is at least 25k, ito ay kasi umpisa pa lang kami [kaya] malaki siya for us.”
Surging fees
The fair’s organizers implemented a tier-based pricing scheme for its concessionaire booths, with rates ranging from P25,000 to P50,000 for the full run of the week-long advocacy concert. Under this setup, booths were categorized by location, with the Corner Tier being the most expensive due to its high foot traffic and accessibility.
However, merchants could place additional payment on top of the base rate to secure prime locations. This system drove up the overall cost for some vendors, with some stallholders reportedly paying as much as P100,000.
Acquiring a spot in the student-led event used to be more affordable, longtime UP Fair merchants said, recalling they only needed to spend P2,500 to P4,000 per night in the fair’s past iterations. Renting a spot inside the fairgrounds only became much more expensive in recent years, the merchants said.
Clara said they do not blame the outside vendors, who, just like them, also want to earn money from the foot traffic that UP Fair draws. However, she said organizers could have been more transparent on what they can deliver, especially if they are charging concessionaires such high prices.
The spike in rental fees can be traced to the event suppliers charging rates similar to last year’s six-day run, despite the 2025 fair being cut short to four days, said Jordan Ray Rojas, UP Fair 2025 concessionaires head. Although suppliers were usually selected through a bidding process, the limited preparation time prevented the committee from holding one.
Traditionally held in February, UP Fair was moved to April this year after the University Student Council (USC) assumed office only in November. In the previous years, the organizing committee planned for the week-long advocacy fair as early as October, but the dominance of abstain votes in last year’s regular elections left the council with only college representatives in charge.
The USC eventually decided to move the fair to April, but limited it only to four nights after no other student organization submitted bids for the remaining two nights. With little time to prepare, the organizers opted to tap the same suppliers of tents, electricity and other logistical needs in last year’s fair.
Several mishaps in UP Fair, such as the technical difficulty during Quests and the delayed opening of the fair during Rev following heavy rain, strained the UP Fair team’s finances. Quiapos said the team ended the fair with an estimated surplus of only P78,000, but they are still waiting for funds from their other partners so they can allocate the remaining money to their advocacy beneficiaries.
Quiapos said the fair’s poor financial standing has left them unable to provide even partial refunds to concessionaires who suffered significant losses last April. During dialogues with merchants held on June 30 and July 2, mediated by the UP Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, both parties agreed on issuing a small fixed refund.
However, only half of 41 concessionaires who expressed interest in receiving a refund filled out the forms and received compensation, according to Quiapos.
‘Left in the dark’
Merchants said the stress and frustration they experienced during the fair could have been easier to handle had the organizers communicated with them and taken greater accountability for the mishaps — especially during Rev, when heavy rains damaged their tents and equipment.
Merchants’ booths lay in shambles following heavy rains on UP Fair 2025’s fourth day, April 5, 2025.
“Bilang negosyante, sanay kami magtanggap ng pagkatalo. [Pero] ito lang ‘yung mga organizer na hindi man lang nagkaroon ng empathy sa kanila ‘yung hinagpis namin,” said UP Fair vendor Analyn*. “Parang nagpi-PM na kami sa isa’t isa–matatanda na kami, naisahan pa kami. Hindi man lang nila kami marunong kausapin nang maayos.”
While concessionaires acknowledged that no one can be blamed for the unpredictable weather, they lamented the lack of immediate assistance from the organizers.
In their Viber group chat with the fair’s organizing committee, vendors scrambled to ask whether their booths were among those destroyed, only to be met with “delayed and incomplete” responses. When they arrived at the fairgrounds, they found their tents still collapsed, alleging that the help from the organizers came late.
Quiapos and Rojas admitted the team’s shortcomings in communication with concessionaires, but said they were not even sure up to the last minute if Rev would still push through, citing safety concerns that hindered them from giving timely updates.
“Ang advise sa amin, huwag munang magpapasok but for some reason may mga concessionaires na nakapasok [sa fairgrounds] kaya doon sila nagalit bakit hindi pa naayos ‘yung tents,” Rojas explained, claiming that the fair’s tent suppliers eventually helped in repairing the tents after the fairgrounds had been cleared of any electrocution risk.
Moving forward, Quiapos and Rojas said they would recommend recalibrating the composition of the UP Fair team and conducting a regular post-fair assessment with concessionaires so they could better understand their concerns.
However, some merchants said unless they observe major changes to how UP Fair is run, they are unlikely to come back next year as some small businesses would take months to recoup their losses. For now, they just hope that future organizers would treat them as partners and honor the trust they place in the event.
Anne recounted how they needed to be away from their family for four days and rent a place in QC while trying to manage the stress from what they were experiencing from the event, “‘Yung mga ganoong bagay, hindi napahalagahan ng committee ng UP Fair. Nag-iyakan na lang kami ng asawa ko pagdating sa bahay.”
“Parang matatalino kayo eh. Parang nakalimutan niyo na ba yung pinaglalaban niyo? Parang ganoon yung dating sa amin eh,” Anne added.
Editor’s Note: The identities of the UP Fair 2025 concessionaires were concealed upon their request.
