Vandal Entertainment brings Chance the Rapper to campus Tuesday night
During dead week, most University of Idaho students focus on finishing last-minute projects and studying for final exams, but on Tuesday they have the chance to set everything aside for an evening of musical entertainment.
This year’s Finals Fest features Chance the Rapper, an up-and-coming Chicago rap and hip-hop artist known for his 2013 mix tape, “Acid Rap.”
Genie Tran |Argonaut
Anthony Delyea and Kara Billington set up a table with many different prizes for Finals Fest 2015.
“He has an interesting vocal sound, for one, it’s not very mainstream,” said Lauren Pinney, Vandal Entertainment board chair. “He doesn’t really do radio … He, from what I’ve seen, kind of strays away from the mainstream rap and has this interesting mix of live instruments, like he has a lot of old school instruments combined with a hip hop sound.”
Pinney said members of VE chose Chance because they thought he would appeal to students.
“We had heard a lot about that name, a lot of buzz about him and he was definitely in our price range,” she said. “Picking him, it was definitely reflective of what we believed the students want, and we still believe that.”
Pinney said the concert will open with a rapper named Boogie, who was recommended by Chance’s agency. She said the two have similar sounds, and should be a good combination.
Emily Rasche, who works with promotions for VE, said a lot of thought went into choosing the artist and VE has gotten a lot of positive feedback both from students and from the public. She said the majority of tickets sold so far have been sold to students, but there have been a lot of public tickets sold as well.
“A lot of WSU kids — those are also public tickets,” Rasche said. “We also heard of some groups coming over from Oregon and Washington, from Seattle and other schools, there’s a group coming in from Oregon State just to see the show.”
Rasche said tickets are available online and at the ticket office, and will also be available at the door on the day of the concert. Tickets are $20 for UI students and $35 for the general public. UI students will be required to have their student IDs to get a ticket at the student price.
Genie Tran | Argonaut
Emily Rasche from Vandal Entertainment Promotions talks about the upcoming Final Fest.
Pinney said she recommends picking up a ticket before the concert because there will likely be long lines on the day of the concert. She said it’s hard to predict how many will actually attend the concert, but she expects there will be somewhere between 2,000-4,000 people there.
According to Katie Dahlinger, assistant director of Student Involvement, around 1,400 tickets have been sold to the concert so far, although VE expects many more to sell the day of the event.
Since it is a general-admission event, seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
“We have early access passes, which has been kind of a promotional giveaway that we’ve done,” she said. “Throughout the semester, we’ve had different competitions and things and people could win early access passes, which let them get in at approximately 6:40-6:45 p.m., so they’re basically guaranteed a front-row spot.”
She said there will be some particular rules for the concert. Flash photography will not be allowed, although cell phone photography will be permitted.
Pinney said students should be aware that nothing, including bags or outside food or drink, is allowed into the concert. She said there will be a security check at the door and people should leave even small bags at home since there will be nowhere to store them at the concert.
Daphne Jackson can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @DaphneNJackson