Lizzy Donker
Junior Editor
Sewaneroo is a campus music festival that students look forward to at the end of every school year. This upcoming Sewaneroo on Saturday, April 29, is no different and features headliners, Shakey Graves, and other student performers; Gustav, Bad Timing, Lily Oakley (C’24), Lobster Haus, Fast Casual, Gray Shiverick, and Lando. With such a big event comes a lot of preparation, and students from the Tiger’s Entertainment Board, the student organization that hosts the event, have been working hard the entire year to put on a great Sewaneroo.
Brionna-Joy Wiggins (C’23) is one of the co-presidents of the Tiger’s Entertainment Board (TEB) and spoke about the process of planning such a big event.
“Our process for Sewanaroo is we try to do it as in-advance as possible,” Wiggins said, “like, we’re talking the year prior. After Sewaneroo ends, we have to start planning the next one. It takes a while to select the artist and then listen to students’ input, and then we have to meet with whoever our connection is, and then they have to get the artist scheduled, and sort all of the contracts and whatnot and that takes several months.”
She said that polling the students takes a while, and not every student responds, so the students who respond are the ones who have their voices heard.
“We try to shoot for whichever one was selected first.” Wiggins said, “This time I think everyone voted for Borns, because who doesn’t know Electric Love, but they weren’t touring at the time so they said ‘no thanks,’ so we had to move on to the next one, which was Shakey Graves. And I think people will like it, because we either have people who are very enthusiastic about Shakey Graves, or we have people who haven’t heard of him yet, and so I’m sure that will be a treat for them to discover a new artist.”
She said that in preparation for Sewaneroo, the school blocks off Georgia Avenue to Guerry Auditorium, down to the library parking lot, because they need space for the stage as well as food trucks that will line the streets. They also clear out Spencer lawn, St. Luke’s lawn, and the Bishop’s Common lawn to have space for various attractions like face painting, bouncy houses, and things of that nature.
“This time Shakey Graves is our only headliner, and as usual we have a handful of student performers in the lineup as well. [There is] a good handful of student artists who auditioned and then applied to perform at Sewaneroo.”
She said the TEB sent out a poll asking students who wanted to perform at Sewaneroo and then had students send them a clip of their work, and from there, students were selected.
“I hope the Sewanee community really enjoys Sewaneroo since we put in so much work…there’s a lot of work that goes into it and hopefully they’ll be able to see our enthusiasm and work ethic that goes into it,” said Wiggins.
All in all, students are looking forward to this upcoming Sewanaroo, whether they are excited to hear Shakey Graves, student bands/performances, or just for the exciting festival-like atmosphere.