Saturday, the College of William and Mary’s radio station, WCWM, hosted what was perhaps the loudest event held on campus in some time, with free musical entertainment from two unique and talented performers.
“I’ve literally spent over 200 hours over the last couple months making this all happen,” Concert Director Todd Van Luling ’13, and co-host of his own radio show, Aesthetic Octopus, said. “In the week leading up to WCWM Fest, I’ve been spending at least eight hours every day on this.”
Originally scheduled to take place under the King and Queen tent in the Sunken Garden, inclement weather forced the WCWM Fest to be moved to the Commonwealth Auditorium in the Sadler Center. Due to the indoor location, some of the planned outdoor activities, including a Batman moonbounce and custom stencil T-shirt spray-painting, have been postponed to an undetermined date.
However, despite this last-minute change in plans, well over 100 students still came to show their support and to have a good time on the dance floor under the flashing lights.
Nonetheless, students like Arthur Schechter believed that the event was able to cater to a large and diverse number of student groups on campus, and are looking forward to future WCWM Fests.
“I think this was the first of many branching-out events which will proceed to put [WCWM] on the map of campus, so to speak,” Schechter said.
The featured artists, Pictureplane and Dominique Young Unique, provided all sorts of danceable beats, which appealed to varying tastes in music. Like most of the students at the event, Shannon Davis ’13 found out about WCWM Fest through friends and Facebook and had never heard of the artists, but is glad to have discovered them.
“I really liked both artists,” Davis said. “They were unique in their own ways. The music was really good. I couldn’t stop dancing.”
Davis, like many of the other students, was unfamiliar with the artists, but WCWM Fest provided the opportunity for discovery.
“[The two artists] aren’t recognized by 90 percent of this campus despite their incredible talent,” Van Luling said.
At the end of the night, students made their way out of the Sadler Center having thoroughly enjoyed electronic house beats, smooth yet rapid-fire lyrics and hours of dancing with their friends.
Van Luling believes the event was a huge success and hopes that WCWM will receive more funding in the future to host even more amazing concerts in the coming years.
“It’s important to show that William and Mary, even though we’re a smaller school, can bring quality acts and put on really good concerts,” Carr said.
Whether students were familiar with the artists or not, the general consensus among them is that the event was just plain fun.
“Who doesn’t like good music?” Schechter said.