Where’s MusicFest 2015?

Students returning to campus this fall might all be asking each other the same question — where’s MusicFest?

MusicFest was an annual concert festival that happened on the University of Toledo Campus during the fall semester. The event began in 2010 and has hosted a slew of headliners since then, including: We the Kings, Cartel, the White Panda, Bowling for Soup and Mike Posner.

However, this year MusicFest will not be happening.

The free community concert was planned and executed by the UT Division of External Affairs and mostly led by former vice president of the division Larry Burns.

Larry Burns has since left UT for a position at the University of Akron, and according to Senior Vice President for Student Affairs Kaye Patten Wallace, Burns helped to make the decision to discontinue MusicFest for 2015.

“The decision not to move forward with MusicFest was a difficult one given its popularity with students and members of the community,” wrote Jonathan Strunk, associate vice president for university communications, in an email statement. “While some of the total cost of the roughly $150,000 concert was covered by sponsorships, tight budget times resulted in the leadership of the former external affairs division deciding to discontinue it.”

Patten Wallace said Burns and the external affairs team decided to cut the concert back in March.

However, students might not be left without some sort of music festival this year.

“While not related to MusicFest, the Division of Student Affairs is coordinating a new concert series that will likely take place in the spring semester,” Strunk wrote. “With this new, student-led music tradition, each year student affairs will survey incoming freshmen to ask them what musicians they would like to hear.”

Patten Wallace said responsibility for MusicFest has not been transferred to student affairs; when students realized there would be no MusicFest, they expressed the want for a concert.

“I think the most important thing, it’s not intended to replace MusicFest; MusicFest was a totally different event,” Patten Wallace said. “It was externally focused, it was community-focused … and students decided that they wanted something more student-focused — something separate than MusicFest. They’re not trying to recreate MusicFest.”

Patten Wallace said the goal is to instead start a new tradition on campus that will be student-led and tailored for the students.

“As a result, the larger student organizations decided CAP (Campus Activities Planning) is taking the lead on this,” Patten Wallace said. “The larger student organizations … decided they would get together and work collaboratively so we have a huge student event as opposed to smaller events.”

Each year students will be polled about what kinds of artists they would like to see in concert, according to Patten Wallace. The survey results will then help student leaders organize and plan the concert that will happen in the spring semester.

“While the process isn’t

finalized, the hope is also that this new concert series will be able to bring in a smaller number of more nationally-prominent artists based on UT students’ preferences,” Strunk wrote.

Currently CAP is working on the concert for this coming year, but has not fully released any details.

When asked about the concert, the president of CAP, Mohammed Albaaj wrote, “I’m the one who is on the team of planning this but we are still working on it.”

For the time being, students will have to say goodbye to MusicFest for good and look forward to a different student-led concert in the spring.