Associated Students of UNM and Student Special Events is holding its annual Fiestas outdoor concert at Johnson Field this Saturday, keeping up with the decades-old tradition.
Festivities begin around 1 p.m. and run until 9 p.m. The event is open to the public but UNM students are “especially encouraged” to attend, said Krista Marrs, executive director at SSE.
“Every year we have learned that, there are always ways to improve and to make better festivals. So if students want to see more, want to see different things, we try to branch out and try new things and come up with new ideas,” Marrs said. “We’ve challenged the process on how to make the best accessible event for students.”
Fiestas will have several performances of different musical genres including; Ugly Robot (rock), Sol de la Noche (Latin/Reggae), Le Chat Lunatique (jazz), Katastro (rock), Repel the Robot (alternative/electronic rock), The Lonely Biscuits (rock/soul/hip-hop), Sphinx (“space glam), Del the Funky Homosapien (hip-hop), Slow Magic and Carnage.
Most of the beginning line up is made up of local bands from Albuquerque, including Sol de la Noche, who won their place in the band battle “Fight for Fiestas” at the end of February.
There will be two performance stages as well, she said, so when one band finishes on the main stage the second stage immediately comes to life with the next musical act, leaving no wait between enjoying each separate show.
Marrs said SSE is also working with KUNM this year in an attempt to do live broadcasting of the music and event.
“So that way people will have a lot more access to us and if you don’t get to get out there for fiestas, if something is going on, you can tune in on the radio,” she said.
Promotions Director Simon Kessler said aside from the music there will be plenty more going on at Fiestas this year. Other activities include the Rockstar Lounge, a mechanical bull, rock climbing wall, Henna tattoos, t-shirt screen printing, Spring Storm Celebration, numerous Give-A-Ways and of course, a variety of food trucks will be on sight.
“It has been a really long process, and a cool process, of working with different groups and different students on campus to figure out what is the most attractive festival that we can put on for students and what is the best,” Kessler said.
“I think in the last, obviously it’s been going on for 60 years, so there’s been a huge amount of transformation.”
Frequent SSE collaborators and Fiestas sponsor, Redfish Entertainment, helped find some of the talent, he said. Other sponsors include Ghetto Gentleman and Rockstar Energy, who will have its own lounge on-site where they will be giving out products through the day.
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Original artwork for Fiestas 2015 flier was done by El Moises, an artist based out of Taos, Kessler said. While looking for a good design and collaborator for the flier, SSE located the artist through the local Nob Hill shop, Masks Y Mas, he said.
Kessler said attendance at Fiestas has increased since he started at SSE in 2012, when there were around three thousand attendees, to around 8,000 in 2014. This year Kessler and Marrs said they hope to attract up to 10,000 people, throughout the day, a number they hope to achieve due to the varietal set-list.
“I think something we really shoot for, as far as music goes, is covering all of our bases. So doing a mixture of different genres so it appeals to everybody a little bit and we feel pretty good about the lineup we’ve made this year. It’s pretty across the board,” Kessler said. “We really try to reach out to, since UNM is such a diverse population, we can reach out to as many people as possible.”
The Fiestas event has been around since 1948, Marrs said. It started out as a three-day event with parades and dances, back then with its own committee to set everything up each spring.
In the 1980s, SSE was formed from four different agencies, she said. As a whole, SSE is one of the most funded agencies on campus, because they do the work of four separate agencies.
Matthew Reisen is a staff reporter at the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @DailyLobo.
