Sun God Festival hits capacity

    “Overall, this year’s festival was probably the smoothest it’s ever been,” Associate Vice President of Concerts and Events Oliver Zhang said in an email. “Performances were smooth, and fairly close to the schedule. There weren’t any issues like artists missing their set or cutting their set shorter.”

    For the third year in a row, RIMAC field reached full capacity. Student wristbands ran out right before the festival opened on Friday at 2 p.m. All 3,000 guest tickets sold out on Tuesday, May 15. In 2011, student wristbands ran out on Thursday evening before the event and guest tickets sold out in three days.

    Muir College senior Nikki Dinh said she picked up her wristband on Thursday around 12:30 p.m.

    “It took about 45 minutes to get my wristband,” Dinh said. “That was the peak, I think. The line went all the way down to RIMAC.”

    New additions to this year’s festival include the expanded dance stage to accommodate for the recent popularity of electronic dance music. 

    “I was at the dance stage most of the time,” Marshall College senior Jessica Zhong said. “The dance stage was better than last year, but last year’s main stage was better than this year. Tommy Trash was my favorite DJ at Sun God his set was awesome.”

    Zhang said he expects the new dance stage set-up to return in a similar capacity or be improved upon for next year.

    “I also think that this year’s festival was the best it’s ever looked as well,” Zhang said. “We made it clear from the beginning that we wanted to create a true festival environment and experience, and I think we’ve achieved that and more.” 

    Some students thought that the security presence increased this year, evident by new security measures, such as the separation of male and female festival attendees at the security-staffed entrance to the festival grounds. 

    “It definitely felt like they were stricter on wristbands [this year],” Dinh said. “They separated us in the beginning, but when we went back around 5 p.m., they didn’t separate the women and the men.”

    Zhang said that he could not speak about security changes to this year’s festival at the moment, but added that the ASCE staff will be debrief the event this week and discuss security issues then. 

    “I think that the feedback to the festival has been generally positive,” Zhang said. “I believe that the combination of the look and feel of the festival matched with strong live performances really won students over. I’m not going to pretend to be oblivious to some of the criticism we received regarding the lineup, but ultimately, the reaction after the day of the festival is all that matters to me.”


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