Hundreds of students sought relief from finals season alongside Brookings community members last Friday at SDSU’s annual May Day Music Festival. 

The event featured live music performances, games, food trucks and giveaways all completely free of charge. Attendees moved between the Volstorff Ballroom and vendors located outside. 

This year marks the 12th May Day Music Festival since it began in 2014, originally hosted by the KSDJ radio station. The KSDJ staff wanted to provide a space for up-and-coming Midwest bands and singers to gain exposure. SDSU’s UPC took over hosting the event right before the COVID-19 pandemic, continuing it as an annual celebration of finishing the academic year. KSDJ still participates in the event by setting up a table and streaming the event live. 

“We want to give students one last big break before they do finals and then go home,” said Adviser for University Programs Jack Richards. “Next week, they’ll be moving home and won’t be able to see their friends maybe for a few months. It’s a chance for the campus community to come together and just have fun, really.” 

The doors to the Volstorff Ballroom opened at 4:30 p.m. and the event lasted until 9 p.m. 

“I’m really happy with the turnout,” Richards said. “We had 200 food vouchers that were being given out, and we ran out of those very quickly. I’ve seen a couple community members that aren’t part of the college come in, which is awesome because this is open for everybody.” 

Local food trucks Las Mexicanas and Ollie’s American Classics were parked outside the student union, where attendees could redeem one of the 200 food vouchers given out by UPC or purchase meals with their own money. 

Keeping with the theme of local vendors, Hand Tied Floral Boutique provided flowers for the festival’s DIY flower bar, a new addition to the event this year. The SDSU Dairy Bar provided free ice cream scoops of various flavors, and a DIY lemonade bar allowed festival-goers to create their own drinks. 

As for the music portion of the festival, there were two live performances. Freshman student singer Mira Bry took the stage first, later followed by a student band called Monarch. 

“Our bass player knows people on UPC, and we were just fortunate enough that our lead singer performed for May Day last year,” Monarch drummer Grant Masek said. “They [UPC] were like, ‘Well, he has a band now. Let’s bring the band with him this time.’ We’re very fortunate that they offered us this opportunity.” 

Monarch began with a country set, before moving into a punk rock focused set for the second half of their performance. The band has previously played at smaller venues such as SDSU’s Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. According to Masek, the May Day Music Festival is the largest organized event that Monarch has performed at so far. 

“We haven’t really narrowed ourselves down to any genre. We’re still pretty new, so we’re trying to figure out what we’ll narrow ourselves down to,” Masek said. 

Numerous carnival games were set up for attendees to partake in while listening to the music. Golf putting, skee-ball, basketball hoops, archery, inflatable darts and other games were laid out around the ballroom. A booth called “Kenzie’s Caricatures” allowed guests to have caricatures drawn, and a temporary tattoo bar featured fun designs as well. 

Another big draw for students was the wide array of potential prizes. LEGO flower bouquets, a pair of Beats Solo 4 headphones and a Pill speaker, a Ninja Blast Max blender, a Pioneer Woman crockpot, fishing poles, pickleball equipment sets and more were up for grabs. 

Jack Richards said that his favorite part of the May Day Music Festival is seeing the community from SDSU and beyond come together to have fun. 

“I just want all the students to know that almost once a week, we’re [UPC] doing something for the students,” said Richards. “So, get out of class. Obviously, study first, but you don’t want to get in an endless cycle of class, library, food, dorm. You’ve got to have some fun, too.” 

Students left the festival with prizes, food and a night of repose before finals week began in full.