FSU put on its annual Ferris Fest event on April 16, where they played host to big names such as Sean Kingston and Cartel, along with many other acts.

The con­cert that is con­sid­ered by most to be the biggest Ferris State University event of the year was moved into Wink Arena this year due to inclement weather. The arena drew in a crowd so large that max­i­mum capac­ity was reached, and they had to begin turn­ing peo­ple away.

“I was not a fan of the fact that Ferris Fest got moved inside,” said LaBreonna Bland, senior in the health care admin­is­tra­tion pro­gram. “Every year for the past four years, the weather has been crazy on that par­tic­u­lar day. That adds to the fun, in my opinion.”

While some were dis­ap­pointed with the choice to bring the event indoors, oth­ers thought it was a great decision.

“I would have pre­ferred the event to be out­side, but it was a good call, espe­cially because it seems like Ferris Fest is cursed,” said Manpreet Singh, senior in the mar­ket­ing pro­gram. “Every year except for one it has been awful weather since I’ve been here.”

“I liked hav­ing the expe­ri­ence of an indoor con­cert,” said sopho­more in the English pro­gram Amanda Wood. “It was a lot eas­ier to access, although the ven­dors and activ­i­ties were a lit­tle more dif­fi­cult to get to.”

The crowd was tense dur­ing the event, with many peo­ple push­ing and shov­ing their way up to the front try­ing to get closer to the per­form­ers. The heat inside the arena prob­a­bly did not help ease tensions.

“I really enjoyed mov­ing up towards the stage and the fights that took place dur­ing my mis­sion up,” said Singh.

“I worked my way to the front of the crowd and was instantly drenched in sweat,” said Bland. “I was irritated.”

“It was kind of cramped, and peo­ple kept push­ing into me and get­ting in front of me, which wasn’t fun for how short I am, but it’s typ­i­cal at an event­ful con­cert,” said Wood.

I was in the front row dur­ing the per­for­mance and I did see it get tense. Between one girl elbow­ing another in the back and another one try­ing to push her way in between two of my friends, I saw some heated words exchanged.

Once the per­form­ers hit the stage though, all ten­sions seemed to be for­got­ten as the crowd immersed them­selves in the show.

Sean Kingston was a decent per­former, with a very ener­getic DJ and an intim­i­dat­ing bouncer stand­ing off to the side of the stage eye­ing the crowd with a threat­en­ing look. I was only able to attend for Cartel and Kingston, but out of the two, I would have to say that Cartel was my favorite due to their great energy, awe­some sound, and originality.

“I would say Sean Kingston and Cartel both did great,” said Singh. “I thought Sean Kingston was really entertaining.”

Other stu­dents weren’t so impressed with the head­liner though, cit­ing that he didn’t really play his own music and that he was not visu­ally captivating.

“Sean Kingston’s open col­lab­o­ra­tion of his songs before he hit the stage was the best part of his set,” said Lisa Laurent, fresh­man in the sports mar­ket­ing pro­gram. “The music played after was not only a dis­ap­point­ment, but also mostly not his. Even though it was free, it wasn’t worth stay­ing for.”

Laurent did stay for Cartel though, who she thought put on an excel­lent show.

“I mainly went to see Cartel, being the only band I liked from the list of per­form­ers,” said Wood. “For the hour that Cartel played, I thought they were awe­some and enjoyed their show.”

“To be hon­est, I’m not really a fan of his, but I can tol­er­ate his songs,” said Bland of Kingston. “He did very lit­tle mate­r­ial of his own and the part where he played other pop­u­lar songs that weren’t his was OK, but we didn’t pay for him to play songs that did not belong to him. He could have done a bet­ter job by just expand­ing his set list and per­form­ing more of his own songs.”

Kingston did at least seem to get the crowd into the party mood. The whole place had its hands in the air and were jump­ing around like sar­dines in a tightly packed can.

Kingston even pulled a lucky lady out of the crowd for know­ing his birth­day and brought her on stage. She got to wear his $100,000 chain for a major­ity of his per­for­mance. Kingston also brought a slew of “beau­ti­ful girls” up on stage while he sang.

While Cartel and Kingston were not allowed to be inter­viewed, Gunnar & The Grizzly Boys were happy to talk about how much they enjoyed per­form­ing at Ferris Fest.

This was the band’s first arena show, and the space was much larger than what they are used to play­ing on.

“It was dif­fer­ent,” said the band. “But we are just happy to be here and the peo­ple are great. They came ready to party early.”

There was a slight mishap dur­ing their per­for­mance, though.

“Some fans got hit in the face with drum­sticks,” the band said laugh­ing. “But we auto­graphed them to make it OK.”

Gunnar & The Grizzly Boys added that they def­i­nitely hope to be able to play at Ferris again in the future and will be back in Big Rapids to play at The Gate in May.

Despite the set­backs due to weather and some shaky reviews in regards to Kingston’s lack of orig­i­nal­ity, Ferris Fest did seem to go off well overall.

“I do applaud those who put Ferris Fest together,” said Bland. “They spend a lot of time and energy on the event to ensure peo­ple have a good time, so a big thank you to every­one who had a part in mak­ing it happen.”

Only time will tell what Ferris Fest 2012 will bring. n