If you’re looking to know more about the planning behind this year’s Loyolapalooza, set to take place Sunday, April 19, look no further. Chris Singlemann ‘16, director of public relations for SGA and Kelly Lussier ‘15 , vice president of social affairs sat down with The Greyhound to discuss what goes in to making this staple Loyola event.
The planning for this year’s Loyolapalooza began as early as last year’s event, where the idea of switching up programming
was already being discussed amongst members of SGA. This year Loyolapalooza will have a more festival-style atmosphere, with four artists including Loyola’s own GWB.com, playing for the entire day. The festival theme was settled on for a few reasons, including the success this style has had at other universities and based on current trends. As Lussier explained, “people appreciate a festival-style event, especially in college since that’s when you start going to them.”
Once the festival-style theme was chosen, the next step was the process that students often have the most questions about–how are the acts for Palooza actually chosen. The process starts by sampling the student population to get a feel for the artists and genres that students would like to see. Lussier explained that “SGA had two tables in Boulder earlier in the year, one that asked for students to list their favorites artists and another where students submitted their favorite genre. This sampling reached about 400 students, and WLOY hosted similar tables to gain insights into what students were looking for in their ideal ‘Palooza artist. Since Loyolapalooza is an outdoor event, certain genres fit better than others, “one of the questions we asked people, ‘think of when you’re sitting on the quad, what are you listening to? And people overwhelmingly said country, pop and rock” said Lussier.
After identifying the favorite genres of the sampled students, Lussier and her team move forward in the multi-faceted planning process. Budget is an obvious factor in choosing an artist, and this aspect of the planning process faced some scrutiny after website Variety.com released a list entitled “How much it costs to book your favorite band” that caught students’ attention.
Lussier explained that once Loyola students saw the list, many had questions about booking and questioned the process, “it started in my own group message, people messaged me on Facebook, and even my dad emailed me.”
Variety.com explains that these are “rough figures” and Lussier echoed this same sentiment and stated that some prices were not accurate or representative, especially for bigger artists. Some popular student suggestions this year included Childish Gambino (75K), Gavin DeGraw (100K) and Lana Del Ray (100K+), but all were out of Loyola’s price range.
While pricing is important, it is not the only deciding factor in booking an artist. Two of the most crucial and most limiting considerations for Loyolapalooza are timing and availability. Loyolapalooza has to be fit into an already booked campus schedule and cannot not overlap with other campus events. “We’re not going to have ‘Palooza the same weekend as finals or Relay for Life,” said Lussier, and the event must also fit into the schedule of the artists.
The price, timing and genre were right for this year’s acts, which include California-based trio Radical Something, rockers X Ambassadors and pop rock group Parachute. Artists who SGA reached out to but were unavailable included AER, Bleachers, Hozier, Icona Pop, Walk the Moon and The 1975. Also, no country artist would accept a bid because ‘Palooza and the Academy of Country Music Awards coincide.
In addition to planning the day’s entertainment, Lussier and the rest of SGA also worked towards making Loyolapalooza a sustainable event. Last year, the Campus Consciousness Tour came to Loyola with Capital Cities, but this year the price of the tour doubled and it was time for Loyola to find its own sustainable solutions. “We took last year as a benchmark and said we wanted to not only do a sustainable ‘Palooza the following year but expand upon it,” stated Lussier.
With the help of two sustainability advisers Emily Bruce and Emily Chambers, and Taylor Rodgers, who is the president of the Environmental Action Club, SGA came up with ways to make Loyolapalooza a greener event. This year, the first 1500 students (approximately 37% of the entire undergraduate population) will get free re-usable water bottles to cut down on waste. All food will be local and many of the vendors at ‘Palooza will be sustainable in their missions, such as Zipcar and organic food-delivery service Relay Foods.
There will also only be one trashcan at the event, which Lussier said, “should be the proportion of trash that we’re actually generating,” and four waste stations for compostable items. Each waste station will be staffed by an SGA member, since Lussier sees this as an educational opportunity to raise awareness for those who may not know the difference behind different sustainable actions.
SGA hopes to add to their idea of “innovation with tradition” by creating a new ‘Palooza experience while still maintaining what has made the event successful in the past. Chris Singlemann summed up the event stating, “every year there’s a ‘Palooza, but not every year have we been able to call it a day-long festival, not every year have we been able to say its sustainable and still bring back the things that people enjoy.”
After the day is finished, Lussier hopes that her planning leaves students with an enjoyable end of the year experience, “I think ‘Palooza is often peoples’ snapshot of their spring semester, or of their whole year and that’s a lot of responsibility for everyone involved , but it’s also really exciting and I think it gives the event purpose.”
The 2015 Loyolapalooza will run from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. this Sunday, April 19.
