A$AP Ferg, GoldLink and Aidy Bryant.
These are all artists brought to campus by Student Union Board, a division of Student Government. SUB organizes large concerts and smaller gatherings. Now, they’re preparing for AMFest, their annual festival, and they hope to make the event larger than ever. They hope to do this by bringing a bigger headliner, having vendors at the event and bringing in more local, DMV artists as openers, said Bisah Suh, SUB’s director.
Pitches Be Trippin’, one of the University’s all-female acapella groups, performed at AMFest last year. Michela Rynczak, the manager of Pitches Be Trippin’ and a senior, said that performing was a positive experience.
“[Performing] was really fun and there was a good crowd,” Rynczak said. “It felt like we were a part of something.”
This will be the third year that SUB puts on this festival. Sarah Maghlouth, a junior and a member of Pitches Be Trippin’, performed with Rynczak at AMFest last year.
“There weren’t too many people,” Maghlouth said. “But it was a good crowd for something like this.”
Suh, a junior in the School of Communication, has been working for SUB since the end of her freshman year. Suh said that as director, she constantly tries to make sure that “there is something for everyone.”
“It’s important to me that AU students aren’t just coming to D.C. and thinking that D.C is just about the Hill or politics, but they’re getting a feel for arts and culture,” Suh said. “Even when we brought A$AP Ferg, all of the openers were local artists. So, with AMFest, we’ve traditionally had all of the openers be local artists.”
Suh hopes that AMFest can become an event that is noticed all around the city.
“My goal is that for five or 10 years from now that people are looking at AMFest like they are looking at Georgetown Day or at Yardfest,” Suh said. “This is a D.C. event for AU students.”
This article was originally published in the December 2017 print edition of The Eagle.
