On Thursday night students have the opportunity to attend a free concert featuring Girl Talk at the Raleigh Amphitheater.
Union Activities Board President Matt Woodward decided to completely rebrand the annual welcome week event and call it Wolfstock instead of Friday Fest. Though a concert during welcome week has been a long-standing tradition, the location this year is off campus — something that has never been done before.
The reason for the change in location is due to a lack of cooperation from administration to hold the event on campus, according to Woodward.
“Nobody was willing to give us space on campus for the event,” Woodward said.
Originally the show was planned for Friday night so it would coincide with the annual Friday Fest event held during the first week of classes. Woodward changed the day of the event in order to accommodate Greg Gillis, also known as Girl Talk. He said he believes this change, as well as the name change to Wolfstock instead of Friday Fest, are why the administration was not cooperative.
“We got no support and no real feedback from the administration,” Woodward said.
Christopher Dobek, the assistant director for conference services and outreach, had originally given UAB permission to use Lee Field for the event Thursday evening. The day after the space was granted, Woodward received an email stating the space would only be granted to UAB if the concert were held on Friday night in order to keep with the tradition of welcome week in the past.
“I thought more about your request last night and reflected on the history and tradition of the welcome week activities, and the significant impact that Friday Fest has on our campus community. At this time, I think that it is in the best interest of welcome week for me to rescind the availability of Lee Field on Wednesday, August 17, 2011 and uphold the original requested dates and contract for Thursday, August 18 – Monday August 22, 2011,” Dobek stated in an email.
Dobek did not return phone calls for comment.
Rick Gardner, the associate director for campus activities and the advisor for UAB, said the reason administration wanted to keep the concert on Friday at Lee Field was because they did not want to have loud noise happening right next to a residence hall on a school night.
“It was going to be held on a school night and housing didn’t want to impose on students living in the dorms located next to the fields,” Gardner said.
Woodward chose an off-campus venue after the space on Lee Field was taken away. He said the amphitheater was chosen because it was the best in terms of capacity and location for the student body.
Woodward said he was disappointed in the lack of support from the administration.
“The reason that we have student-elected positions on campus is because we are trusting the students’ vision. There was no legitimacy given to the UAB from the administration and that is upsetting,” Woodward said.
Student Body President Chandler Thompson said the student leaders and administrators had differing opinions about whether or not holding the concert on campus during the week would disturb students. Thompson said she fought to get a location on campus but was unable to do so.
“In general I wish the situation was handled differently,” Thompson said.
Woodward said he chose Gillis as the headlining artist because of the desire he saw in the student body for a more interactive welcome week concert experience.
“I’ve seen that students have organically called for events that are rave-like. They don’t want a passive concert; they want something active. This artist really gives that atmosphere,” Woodward said.
The doors will open for the event at 6 p.m. on Thursday. There will be buses running from Reynolds Coliseum to the amphitheater and back from 6 p.m. until around 11 p.m. In addition to Girl Talk headlining, there will be opening performances by King Mez, Tim Gunter and Eddy B, Lila and Luster. At the time of press, 3,153 tickets had been given out.
