With many events and gatherings across the globe getting cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, events that were planned to take place at Stevens are no exception.
Stevens’ Entertainment Committee (EC) announced via email on Monday that a majority of their events for this semester would be cancelled, the rest postponed. Techfest 2020 was under the “cancelled” list, along with Battle of the Bands, The Book of Mormon, Dinner Cruise, Hadestown, To Kill a Mockingbird, Midnight Breakfast, and a Niall Horan concert.
“Once everything started happening, we talked to Danielle Maxson, our advisor, about Techfest. We agreed the event just wasn’t gonna happen,” said Olivia Scott, Co-Chair of Festivities for EC. “Luckily, the contract for the artist we were pursuing hadn’t been signed at that point, so we were able to decide what we wanted,” she explained. Scott went on to explain that EC’s main role in selecting the headliner is presenting a list of guests within their allocated budget for the student body to vote on. Once the poll results are calculated, they hand that information off to the Office of Student Life who works with an agent to handle the rest of the booking process.
“Price and schedule are the main considerations,” said Julia Dwight, the second Co-Chair of Festivities for EC, “We always want to bring bigger guests to Stevens so more students can enjoy, but one thing we didn’t expect was with a bigger artist, there are bigger requirements.” She explained how besides the appearance fee, some large guests require specific stage requirements, security, and other various needs. Additionally, if pursuing an artist whose popularity suddenly increases with a hit song, costs increase and EC’s Co-Chairs of Festivities have to change plans.
“We’re not allowed to tell anyone who the artist we’re pursuing is, until the contract has been signed and a date for an announcement is approved by their management team,” said Scott. She emphasized that EC doesn’t keep the guest “a secret just for fun,” and that there could be legal consequences if they break confidentiality.
Since no contract was signed, they are able to say that for this year’s Techfest the artist they were in the process of contracting as the headliner was Fetty Wap.
A virtual Techfest and Fall Techfest were discussed but dismissed. “Techfest is about bringing the community together […] we always want to create an environment where everyone in the Stevens community can have fun with their friends,” Scott said. She explained how many of the activities planned – live music performances, food trucks, inflatables – would be impossible to try and digitize.
“We were thinking about the logistics of having it in the fall, but there’s a lot of uncertainty still about budgets and whether or not everything will be alright by then. We decided it would be better to just make the 2021 event better,” said Dwight. They assured that the theme and student ideas collected such as food trucks and giveaways would definitely be reworked into plans for next year.
Besides Techfest, EC plans many events throughout the year. Founder’s Day Ball, which was also organized by Scott and Dwight, took place in February and Earth Day will take place in late April in a digital capacity. “We’re co-hosting a social media campaign with SAVE (Sustainability, Activism, Volunteering, & Engineering) for the Global 50th anniversary of Earth Day celebration,” said Scott. Their plan is to educate students about how sustainability intersects with things they may be more familiar with, like food, art, or fashion. They hope many students will engage with them and the other student organizations participating.
For more information about EC, you can follow them on Instagram, @stevens_ec, or contact them by emailing entertainment@stevens.edu.
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