On Sept. 28, students gathered around the Campanile, stirring with anticipation and eager to see who would be headlining this year’s Homecoming concert.
Following the buildup, the atmosphere of anticipation gave way to excitement as word spread rapidly through campus that Lil Dicky would be headlining the concert this year, with opening acts DJ Steph-O, Apollo and DJ Golden Brain.
It is no surprise that students are excited. The concert, which serves as a kick-off to Homecoming Week on the evening of Oct. 13, is central to getting campus excited about celebrating Tech. Many feel that Lil Dicky will do just that.
“The enthusiasm on campus has been contagious,” said Gautam Sowda, fourth-year BME. “People are really excited about the line-up this year. I can’t wait. It’s going to be a great time.”
Lil Dicky, an American rapper, rose to the prominence with the release of his music video “Ex-Boyfriend” and has since continued to his career, releasing songs, such as “$ave dat money,” and the ever popular “Pillow Talking.”
His relevance and current work have students excited to see him perform live here at Tech.
“Lil Dicky is changing the game with his rap style and satire,” said Joe Cooke, second-year NS. “I can’t wait for Friday
the 13th.”
Every year, SCPC in conjunction with other organizations puts in plenty of work to ensure that the concert is as well received as it has been.
This year the homecoming concert will start at 6 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 13 on Tech Green.
The concert is vital to campus and Homecoming festivities, as it sets the tone for Homecoming Week and gets students amped for the fun ahead. This, along with the building excitement, makes the concert a key part of the Homecoming activities.
To make sure that the concert does this, SCPC started working last spring to organize the event.
“We started planning earlier in the spring semester than we had in the past,” said Renee Botyrius, third-year CS and concerts chair for SCPC. “This gave us more options as to who we could bring because artists were still working on scheduling their plans for the fall.”
With more time and options, the committee was able to better align the act to the main considerations of SCPC: student body opinion, artist cost and availability and artist reputation and relevance.
Last year SCPC decided to have two smaller acts rather than one big one in order to cater to different music tastes. Unfortunately one of the artists (Bebe Rexha) backed out last minute to host the European Music Awards instead. This left SCPC scrambling to find another artist and they later signed Timeflies (after the original artist announcement).
“We send out a survey every spring, and from the information that we received this past year, my committee and I narrowed the list down to the top five options based on the student voice,” Botyrius explained of the student input process.
“We also take into consideration the overall popularity of every artist that we consider and how relevant they are today,” she continued.
After ranking the possible artists, the committee consults their agent who provides information about the artists availability, how easy they are to work with and how much money to offer them. Then the committee will send the artist an offer.
“At this point, the ball is in their court, they can choose to accept the offer and we continue into the contracting process,” Botyrius stated. “However, if they choose to decline the offer, then we refer back to our list and reconsider everything that I mentioned above.”
This year the stars aligned, and the hard work and early planning paid off.
“My committee and I are extremely excited about the event this year,” Botyrius said. “Unlike in past years, we only sent out one offer and that was really exciting to hear back from our first choice with an acceptance. I’m sure this excitement will carry us through to the concert.”
However, just because the artist has been chosen does not mean the work is over. As with any large event, work will be going on behind the scenes up to and even after the event to make sure that it is a flawless experience.
“As far as work that we still have to do, we mainly have to finalize all of the logistics,” Botyrius explained. “They entail working through details with all of our vendors as well as working on the day of schedule and how that day will actually flow from setup, to the actual show, to cleanup.”
It is because of all of this work that the concert is able to create such excitement on campus and sustain it throughout Homecoming Week and the festivities it entails.