Clemson Music Fest — the electric two day, multi-genre music festival — will make its highly anticipated return on April 11-12. The event will be held on the Upper Intramural Field, open to an audience of all ages and featuring a set of incredible performers, ranging from renowned headliners Jessie Murph, DaBaby and The All-American Rejects, to local bands such as Congress. This variety of entertainment provides each individual with a personalized, unforgettable experience, and for the student organizers behind the festival, this is the ultimate goal.
One of the most unique aspects about Clemson Music Fest is the high level of student involvement in the planning and production process. The promotion of this year’s festival has been spearheaded by several outstanding individuals, including Daniella Lopez, a senior parks, recreation and tourism management major from Miami, Florida; Logan Survance, a junior economics and history major from Greenville, South Carolina; and Abby Szlosek, a senior sports communication and marketing major from Charleston, South Carolina.
“A lot of different music festivals don’t partner with student organizations or students in general because they don’t want to worry about some of the guidelines,” Lopez says, “so it’s nice having a promotion company that does want to include students by offering internships and different opportunities.”
Lopez was involved with last year’s inaugural festival, giving her some insight into the process of putting on such a major event. However, she has found this year to be a little different.
“I’d say what makes this year so special is it being the second year. Now, students realize this is actually something happening on campus, and they want to be a part of it.”
Szlosek agrees with this change in embracing the event, and specifically identifies the shift in their marketing and content strategy from year one to year two.
“This year, a big goal has been to showcase how this event is meant for everyone in Clemson — students, faculty, members of the community. This is our festival and we want everyone to enjoy what these unique performers bring to Clemson,” she says.
Raising awareness across such a vast student body is a challenging task, so the students in charge have been creative with their marketing tactics. They have organized competitions, such as a freshman pie eating contest and a scavenger hunt with Clemson Undergraduate Student Government (CUSG). Survance laughs remembering the commitment of two particular students, who intentionally parked on opposite sides of campus to be ready when the scavenger hunt clues were posted. The student leaders have also facilitated campaigns, such as the “Be Kind” initiative. Most notably, they have introduced a new club countdown initiative, through which they highlight individual student organizations and offer opportunities to members such as student discounts and rewards for fundraising in the form of festival tickets.
“We wanted to provide more equitable opportunities for different organizations on campus to get involved. Our goal is to find little ways for each student to say they were a part of Clemson Music Fest somehow,” Lopez says.
Being involved behind the scenes of Clemson Music Fest has been an incredibly fulfilling experience for Lopez, Survance and Szlosek.
“The most rewarding thing for me is seeing how it supersedes a lot of other stuff on campus and brings people together,” Survance says. “Clemson Music Fest is very unifying; it is bringing groups together already, before the event has even happened.”
Lopez also provides her own insight and praise.
“My favorite part of planning this is knowing I’ll be able to help make someone’s experience at Clemson better,” she says. “It might be their favorite tradition, their favorite memory or just something they’re able to be a part of during their time here.”
Szlosek works primarily on the creative side of things, capturing the excitement of the event through photography and video content. When she is behind the camera at Clemson Music Fest, her favorite thing to do is capture the attendees, rather than the artists.
“Taking photos of my friends and peers at the show and getting to show them enjoying the artists is priceless. It helps us capture what the student experience is truly like at Clemson,” she says.
When asked how their work with Clemson Music Fest has contributed to their Clemson experience, Lopez and Survance praise the growth they have been exposed to, both as leaders and as people, and they deeply appreciate the professional development opportunities they have gained through their work.
Lopez has always planned to go into event management and her work with Clemson Music Fest has helped guide her to that end all along. Meanwhile, Survance’s experience has been so impactful he says it has “genuinely changed the path of my career,” and he now intends to use his connection with Clemson Music Fest as a foundation to build upon as he pursues a future in, to his surprise, the same industry.
Student acts to perform on primary and secondary stages
Clemson Music Fest already stands out due to its unique inclusion of students in the planning and marketing process, but the festival goes even further by allowing Clemson students to perform and showcase their talents onstage at the festival.
Solo performer Sophia Treadway, a sophomore pre-business major at Clemson, will take the stage on Friday at 6:10 p.m. Born in nearby Greenville, South Carolina, Treadway began taking singing lessons as early as age seven and officially entered the music industry shortly after, winning national competitions and working with renowned vocal coaches and agents. Now as a verified artist on Spotify, she looks forward to representing the University well through her performance.
Clemson Music Fest also gives students a voice through the annual Battle of the Bands competition, which took place April 3-4. A variety of local, student-based bands and DJs competed against each other to earn votes from a student audience. The final winner, KAJR, earned a performance slot on the main stage during the festival’s 4 p.m. window on Saturday, April 12.
Tickets for the two-day event are available at the Clemson Music Fest website.
FULL SCHEDULE OF PERFORMERS
Friday, April 11 – primary stage
9:30 p.m., Jessie Murph
8:00 p.m., DaBaby
6:30 p.m., Charlieonafriday
6:10 p.m., Sophia Treadway
4:30 p.m., Congress
Friday, April 11 – secondary stage
7:30 p.m., Sloan Street Band
5:30 p.m., DJ Zach Koch
4:00 p.m., Detective Blind
Saturday, April 12 – primary stage
9:30 p.m., The All-American Rejects
8:00 p.m., mike.
6:30 p.m., Bryce Vine
5:15 p.m., Huddy
4:00 p.m., KAJR
Saturday, April 12 – secondary stage
7:30 p.m., Chad Frick
6:00 p.m., Benny Hagerty
4:45 p.m., DJ Glowyn