As revealed at last week’s ROC the Nest, everyone’s rapper/Paul Walker sidekick, Ludacris, is coming to FGCU’s annual pop-fest, Eaglepalooza. Oh, he won’t be alone. The siner will be joined at the November 24th event by rising star Kendrick Lamar. In addition, concertgoers should expect several opening acts.
“We’re currently looking, but we plan to do between two and three openers. We have one or two booked, but we’re still waiting on one more,” said Jacob Robinson, Programming Board President.
However, the university’s Programming Board isn’t going to sit and be outdone by their guests, and are instituting sweeping changes to the way the concert goes down. The most noticeable change is the shift in location from Germain Arena (and the campus recreation fields before that), just down the road to JetBlue Park, near Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW).
Programming Board also made the not-so-surprising move of changing the event to Sunday, keeping with the ever-altering time of years past. “One, we had to look at the dates that were available for both artists we wanted and JetBlue Park, and we wanted a more festival feel. Sort of like a day festival, Robinson told Eagle News.
That’s right, Eaglepalooza will be returning to its roots as a multi-attraction, fair-like occasion. Expect games and vendors (often with freebies) to make their comeback. As for which ones, that depends.
“We sent out vendor packages to numerous businesses, so now it’s just waiting to see who gets back to us. It’s first come, first serve for booths,” explained Joseph McGibboney, Coordinator of Student Programming.
Maybe the most significant change Programming has done is online ticketing, the inception of which was a necessity.
“With moving to JetBlue, they don’t distribute and control ticketing. In the past, Germain did it all. So, that left the university to find another option, and the majority of universities use a system similar to what we’re going to be using,” Robinson said.
With student tickets going on sale September 13th (for the general public it’s a week later) and the ease of getting them improved, is there a fear of eslling out far in advance? Not according to Robinson.
“That’s what’s good about JetBlue, is that the field that we’re using can hold between 10,000 and 12,000 people, almost the entire school. So that was another benefit to moving to the park, is that now everyone at FGCU can participate,” he remarked.
While the anticipation is always fun, it’s also interesting to look at what might have been: specifically, the artists that almost were.
“We looked at Drake, Niki Minaj, Macklemore, and Bruno Mars. Those were top ones we tried for,” McGibboney said.
Still, by applying the lessons recently learned to the style of the past, and booking top-tier talent, it looks like Eaglepalooza 2013 will be one for the ages.