T-Pain announced to headline TechFest.

With 14 days remaining until TechFest, the question on many students’ minds is: who is this year’s headlining performer?

Now confirmed by Greg Klesaris, President of the Entertainment Committee (EC) since 2015 and David Baldyga, incoming President of EC, T-Pain will be headlining TechFest on April 20, 2018. According to Klesaris and Baldyga, “This decision was made through a mix of feedback from students as well as using our own past experiences from running so many events through the Entertainment Committee. Therefore, we could make an informed decision on which artist would appeal to the widest variety of students.”

However, this decision did not come easily, due to communication delays between the Entertainment Committee, Student Life, and upper administration, which had to approve the performer and consider all aspects of the decision when signing the contract. Entertainment Committee was touching base with Student Life on a daily basis, but maintaining a consistent loop of contact with busy administrative officials proved to be arduous. Furthermore, getting the agent of the performer and the administration to be on the same page and satisfied with the contract delayed the process the most, but ultimately the two parties were able to come to an agreement.

After months of hard work, with Klesaris, Baldyga, and other members of the Entertainment Committee including Carly Palicz (EC Vice President of On-Campus Events), Stephanie Roberson (EC Vice President of Off-Campus Events), and Lisa Mengotto meeting every Thursday since October 2017 for approximately three hours, everything is now finalized. All that remains is putting together the manpower and running the event the day of.

This year’s TechFest is the first one since 2014 that has been solely spearheaded by the Entertainment Committee and will be an overall larger event with additional activities to participate in, other than the concert. 

Klesaris and Baldyga are “most excited for when the performer takes the stage, not because we want to see the concert, but because we want to see all of the students in attendance having an amazing time. That is what makes the almost year of planning and hundreds of hours of work put into this event all worth it. This is all about the students and making them have a once in a lifetime experience.”

TechFest will start at 5 p.m. on April 20 on Palmer Lawn. There will be food trucks, carnival games, caricature artists and more! Then at 7 p.m., instead of the “typical” opener, student DJs will perform, competing for crowd’s votes. Finally, at 8 p.m., the main performer, T-Pain, will perform his set. Students must bring their Stevens IDs and no bags. The event is open to all undergraduate members of the student body (only Stevens students) and will allow students to come together to experience this Stevens tradition.