For Blake Elder, Ferris Fest 2011 was a chal­lenge and a learn­ing expe­ri­ence at the same time.

This is Elder’s fourth year in col­lege and first year at Ferris. Elder is in music indus­try man­age­ment and an active mem­ber of Entertainment Unlimited.

This year’s Ferris Fest fea­tured rap­per Sean Kingston and rock group Cartel as the main acts.

“Ferris Fest was a chal­lenge unlike Turn up the Good or Autumn Alive. Anytime you have mul­ti­ple stages and dif­fer­ent groups, things get expo­nen­tially more com­plex,” said Elder.

Elder added, “It was a great learn­ing expe­ri­ence run­ning back and forth help­ing man­age both groups.”

Elder was part of the stage crew for Entertainment Unlimited. He also helped with set-up and tear down between sets on the main stage, includ­ing help­ing out with com­mu­ni­ca­tion between first and sec­ond stage.

Although Elder trans­ferred to Ferris this year, he became very involved with Entertainment Unlimited and MIMA. In addi­tion, he recently became the new pres­i­dent of MIMA for the 2011-12 aca­d­e­mic year.

“Creating and work­ing events on cam­pus is some­thing I am try­ing to learn as much about as pos­si­ble because I trans­ferred into the music indus­try man­age­ment pro­gram at Ferris this year.”

Due to the weather that took place on the day of Ferris Fest, there were sev­eral changes, which included set­ting up the stage and equip­ment in a dif­fer­ent location.

Ferris Fest was sup­posed to take place in the north quad, but due to the cooler tem­per­a­tures and rain/snow mix, the con­cert was moved to the Wink Arena instead.

“I feel like given all of the last-minute changes due to weather, we all pulled the show off more or less seam­lessly,” said Elder.

Since Ferris Fest included mul­ti­ple stages and dif­fer­ent groups set­ting up, man­ag­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion and more tasks for the set-up crew to take on in a dif­fer­ent loca­tion than pre­vi­ously planned, it was a bit more complex.

Being an active mem­ber in two groups, includ­ing being the new pres­i­dent of one of them, made the expe­ri­ence even more com­pli­cated for Elder.

“My favorite part of the show was learn­ing how to cre­ate and man­age an event as large as Ferris Fest,” said Elder.

Elder is now look­ing for­ward to next year as he gained a lot of knowl­edge from this year’s chal­lenges with set­ting up for Ferris Fest.

“The abil­ity to learn how to pull peo­ple together, some­times in the moment – to keep the event going is an incred­i­ble piece of knowl­edge that I gained from this event,” said Elder.

Elder added, “Now that we know what to expect, EU pres­i­dent Lindsey Parker, book­ing agent Alex Lorenz, Bulldog Radio President Jess Giesler and I will be pre­pared, and a rock­ing team next year.” n