Every year around this season, students are constantly checking the Student Center and Campus activities Instagram anxiously waiting for the announcement of who is headlining this year’s Hollybash.
There is always a good amount of speculation about who it will be. Some students dream big for artists like Megan Moroney, PinkPantheress, and even Ariana Grande, while others level themselves down to smaller artists like Fetty Wap, Lauren Spencer Smith, or Slayyyter.
Yet for the past few years, students have opened their phones during the second week of April and have learned that they are welcoming a DJ to the school for the festival, and it’s always met with a mixed level of anger and slight disappointment.
Last year, when it was announced that DJ Pauly D was coming to Rowan, there was an aspect of excitement, since DJ Pauly D was the star of the iconic MTV reality show “Jersey Shore”. Students may have also been excited for the change from live music to a DJ set.
The story this year was a little bit different. When Zack Fox of “Abbott Elementary” was announced as the headliner of this year’s festival, the reaction was met with a near unanimous disappointment.
He isn’t as notable as other artists that have graced the Hollybush green stage like Tori Kelly, peaking at under 500 thousand monthly listeners. There is also the elephant in the room, the fact that he’s more of a DJ than anything.
With such a bustling music scene on campus and in South Jersey in general, students crave live music; they don’t want another DJ. It also defeats the purpose of having 10 of Rowan’s best bands perform in a Battle Of The Bands to open for someone who is mixing their songs on stage in the moment.
Other campuses get actual artists for their yearly performances. This year, Stockton got The Driver Era and Montclair got Cash Cobain. Why are other schools getting live artists while we’re getting stuck with two years of DJs?
The same goes for commencement speakers. Every year, Ric Edelman gets to speak during at least one of the commencements. While it is important to allow space for our benefactors to speak at our events and for Hollybash to be affordable, it is also important to keep these events fresh.
The Whit staff believes we as students deserve better. It is imperative that if Rowan is unable to find artists and speakers of renown, at the very least we can continue to bring in artists relevant to the area. That is why Pauly D was an acceptable choice, while Zack Fox is such a contentious pick.
Students pay the fees that are funneled into these events. One way to potentially avoid this fallout, would be to poll students in the lead-up to events like commencement or Hollybash to find out who the student body is actually interested in watching.
This serves a double purpose of not only appeasing the student body, but ensuring that these events are profitable. Not enough students are excited to see Zack Fox to draw them to Hollybash when they could go anywhere else on a Friday night. This detracts from overall event spending at booths and food trucks.
While it is understandable that Rowan may want to draw unique artists and speakers and save money, it is also important that the administration and event coordinators not forget that this is for the students. If student input is not considered going forward, we can only expect the attendance of Hollybash, as well as commencement, and all other events, to drop.
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