By Amanda Valentovic
STAFF WRITER
Hofstra will taste a dose of “Cough Syrup” this weekend.
Young the Giant will be headlining this year’s annual Music Fest on Saturday, May 3 at the intramural fields. Jhene Aiko, Vic Mensa and ASTR will be supporting acts, along with “Battle for Music Fest” winner, Hookz.
The full lineup for Music Fest was not announced until this past Monday, generating talk about who the performers could be from the hints that event sponsors Hofstra Concerts and Entertainment Unlimited had been dropping.
“We wanted to get people talking and get people excited,” said Jade-Ryan Williams, junior public relations major, who is the publicity chair of Hofstra Concerts. “This is our biggest event so we wanted to have big social media presence and get the word out to as many students as possible. We just have rules that we have to go by when it comes to announcing artists.”
One of the hints said: “You might need some cough syrup after we announce this,” referring to Young the Giant’s song, “Cough Syrup.” A Lollapalooza schedule was also posted as a hint, mentioning that Hofstra’s Music Fest had three acts in common with the schedule, also saying that one of them had performed on Saturday Night Live, that artist being Jhene Aiko.
Planning for a large event like Music Fest begins in the fall. The year starts off with a list of possible artists to try and bring to Hofstra, including names drawn from a student suggestion box that are taken into consideration.
“People are never really shy about who they want to perform on campus,” said Alex Rexha, the president of Entertainment Unlimited.
The next step requires Hofstra Concerts to find the most popular artists that are available to come to campus.
“We have to go through what the majority of our school would like and then what artists are available,” Williams said. After that process, an artist is agreed on, and offers to the artist are negotiated for a while. For this year’s show, Young the Giant happened to be on that original list.
To make Music Fest a memorable event each year, Hofstra Concerts and Entertainment Unlimited join forces. While Hofstra Concerts is in charge of the music side of the day, Entertainment Unlimited lives up to their name by organizing the carnival.
“Entertainment Unlimited deals with the grounds logistics, carnival, food, vendors, and giveaways,” said Rexha, a senior mathematical economics and Asian studies major. “We work together for our advertising and social media campaigns.”
Public Safety will be operating in full force throughout the day, with officers patrolling the grounds.
“We treat it as a normal event,” said John O’Malley, associate director of Public Safety. “It’s an annual event, and we’ve never had any problems with it.”
While there will be a few extra officers around campus due to the amount of people, it will be treated like a normal event. There will also be student public safety managers on the grounds for extra enforcement.
The proceeds from Music Fest’s fundraising and publicity are donated to a charity. This year, that charity is the VH1 Save the Music Foundation, a non-profit that works to bring music programs to public schools across the country.
“It was something we all though was great and we wanted to show support for them!” Williams said.
Music Fest starts at 12:30 p.m. and is free to any student with a valid Hofstra ID.
