"It Is Going To Be An Event That We Haven't Seen at the University of Adelaide Before"

Saturday, November 16th, promises to be one of the most thrilling, musically-charged days in the University of Adelaide’s recent history. 

AdeLOUD, the new student-led music festival kicking off this Saturday at 4 pm, boasts a special line-up curated by the university’s very own electronic music alumnus and certified platinum artist Motez. The festival team will be presenting 10 hours of non-stop music to the lucky attendees, from a diverse collection of local, interstate, and international artists including Genesis Owusu, Nooriyah, Elsy Wameyo, JamesJamesJames, In2stellar, and more.

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The event helps to mark the university’s 150th anniversary, and will be taking place across two of the institution’s staple locations: the historic, sunny Cloisters and the beloved UniBar.

To better understand the work that went into coordinating this massive, unabashedly noisy event, we talked to Kaitlyn Greatrex and Zac Breheny, student interns who are both a crucial part of AdeLOUD’s organising committee.

Both Kaitlyn and Zac are third-year students at the Elder Conservatorium of Music. “We’ve been there to give a student voice, and discuss what our other peers would be looking for and how to make [the event] something that everyone will want to come in for,” Kaitlyn explains. 

The whole operation has been very student-focused. Kaitlyn points to, as an example, the process of picking the festival’s opening act: they hosted a competition entered into by bands that students of the university were part of.

“Zach and I got to listen over the entries with Motez, and we pretty much got to pick what we felt really matched, not just the festival, but what we would kind of want to come in and watch as well, and what we felt other students would want to watch.” 

She calls it “a really good opportunity to celebrate other students and have them involved just as much as we are.”

As a burgeoning musician herself, Kaitlyn has truly enjoyed being part of this huge production, “For me, it’s been really exciting. I’ve always been a big fan of festivals and it’s been really cool to be on the flip side of it.”

Zac agrees that, “Getting into the event organising side of the festival has been kind of eye-opening.” He refers to, for example, “all the communications that need to occur to get a stage built in the UniBar.” 

Zac goes on to say, “There’s been months of communications happening between staging events, security guards, hospitality things, etc, just all the work that goes into the backside of it is stuff the most people don’t see. The specifics of: what do they want in their dressing room, what do they need onstage. All of those things just get sort of overlooked by performers and audience members a little bit.”

Like Kaitlyn, Zac is part of the pop stream at the Conservatorium. Has this experience given him a different perspective on what it means to pursue music?

“I feel like it has,” he confirms. He has realised that “there’s a lot more avenues to pursue than just technically proficient music as a player or a teacher.”

The two are both stoked to see all of their hard work pay off.

Kaitlyn says, “I’m honestly really excited to see the UniBar and the Cloisters transformed. The architecture students have worked really hard on creating their designs on top of the cloisters. That is what I'm most excited about - to see all that come to life, and just to see all the other students there and enjoying it.”

Zac adds, “I’d like to see what Genesis Owusu is going to do. He’s had some pretty high tech specifications, and I’m pretty interested to see what he's going to pull out onstage.”

The two urge their fellow students - and those beyond the university walls - to attend the festival that the organisers are calling “an ode to up-and-coming youth.”

“I think it is going to be an event that we haven’t seen at uni before,” Kaitlyn says. “I think it’s such an incredible and well-thought out festival. It’s such good ticket pricing. And I genuinely think that the people who don’t come - they’re going to regret it later after seeing how incredible it was.”

Zac’s thoughts are similar - they both point to the fact that tickets for students are only $25, and tickets for general admission are still only $50. “It’s the end of the uni year. Exams are done. The performers are all great. And it’s heaps cheap.”

The student-led music festival, happening on Saturday November 16th, is sure to be unforgettable.