May Day Music Festival to take place this weekend

Regen Wiederrich, Reporter

This year’s May Day Music Festival will be on campus this Saturday, April 30, featuring live music, prizes, food trucks and more.

The University Program Council, or UPC, is gearing up to host its final large event of the semester. The programming board, made up of current SDSU students, plans a significant number of university events throughout the year.

The May Day Music Festival has become an annual tradition on campus since 2015. This year, the event will be held on the Sylvan Green, adjacent to the Campanile. The event is being planned by Jacki DeYoung, the UPC concert coordinator, and Anna Orr, the UPC special events coordinator. 

DeYoung oversees the musical act lineup. She said she is excited that the event will host a mix of different acts.

This year’s lineup consists of Emmarie Kaiser, Lex Kuske, Grayson Dewolfe, Fox Royale, Alex Macgillivray and Stay Outside. The first two student performers each have a 30-minute set. Then, starting at 5 p.m. and each hour on the hour, the final four acts will perform. 

Alexa Kuske, a current junior at SDSU and an avid UPC event attendee, is one of the two student performers in the lineup for the May Day Music Festival. Kuske was the recent winner of Jack’s Got Talent, a fall UPC event that takes place over Hobo Week. 

“This is going to be the biggest concert I am going to be putting on in a way, and that is a huge honor,” Kuske said when asked what it meant to be a student performer for the festival. Kuske said that her set will be “happy upbeat music” with a mixture of Indie, TV show songs, 2000s throwbacks and more. 

Orr is primarily in charge of the non-musical part of the event, she said. Two food trucks, “Rub ‘N Tug BBQ,” which is a bar-b-que style option, and “El Charrito,” a Mexican style food option, will work the event. 

UPC will be handing out food vouchers to a select number of students at the beginning of the event. After that, the food trucks will still be open for anyone to enjoy. The food vouchers will be available at the main UPC table. This is also where students can show their Jacks ID to try to win prizes. The main prize this year is a Bluetooth speaker. In addition to winning prizes, students can receive free T-shirts and other giveaways for attending. 

DeYoung and Orr are in their first year as members of UPC.

“I am excited to have a bigger event on campus to kick off the spring season,” Orr said. 

Though UPC has experience in planning numerous events, this year’s May Day Music Festival is their first time hosting the event alone, previously partnering with KSDJ.

Pending inclement weather, the event will move to the lower level of the Student Union in Jack’s Place. The food trucks would then be moved to the Wagner lot just west of the Student Union. 

Emma Brookman, the next UPC president, said that she is excited about the May Day Festival too.

“I am excited to get live music on campus and get one last big event in before finals,” she said.

Though the May Day Festival will be the final event of the year for UPC, it is not the only event happening on Saturday. The suicide prevention and mental health awareness color run will start Saturday at 9 a.m. at the Student Union.