One of the community favorites of Hopscotch is the day parties. These free events that take place before the main festival starts for the night are independently organized and draw not only a diverse group of musical acts, but fans as well. This year, NC State’s student radio station, WKNC, collaborated with Duke’s station, WXDU, as well as UNC-Chapel Hill’s WXYC, for a day party at King’s Barcade and Neptunes.
The original idea for a collaborative event came from Duke WXDU general manager, Jack Mercola. For the past four years, WXDU had teamed up with North Carolina label, Three Lobed Records to host shows in King’s Barcade during the festival. This year, when Three Lobed decided to no longer host, Mercola thought to invite other Triangle-area student stations to contribute.
“I definitely felt responsible for carrying on the WXDU day party,” Mercola said.
After exchanging emails and meeting up in coffee shops and diners, with WKNC general manager, Matt Brown, and WXYC’s Outreach Coordinator, Cozy Brents, the three stations worked together to bring a diverse lineup to the venues.
“We all have a different sound,” Mercola said. “I thought it would be interesting for festivalgoers to hear the sounds from three different college stations.”
Most day parties during Hopscotch are put on by venues or record labels. The college stations ended up booking King’s Barcade, as well as the basement venue in the same building, Neptunes. With two stages to work with, the radio stations were able to cater to different genres with more upbeat and DJ-centered sets downstairs and more rock and band-oriented music upstairs. In all, eight different acts played sets between both stages.
“It was almost like our own mini festival,” Brown said.
Although it may seem ambitious for college radio stations to organize events alongside record labels and established venues, Mercola considers it one of the responsibilities of a college radio station to expose students to the outside community, as well as be a feature of the local music scene.
“The people who listen to college radio are a lot of the people who would buy a ticket to Hopscotch,” Brents said.
However, there can be challenges to integrating a university organization into the community. Neptunes, a bar and usually 21-and-up venue, originally had said it would keep its age restrictions for the party. According to Brown, there were a lot of talks with the managers to be able to open the venue up to those not of drinking age.
“That was something important to us,” Brown said. “A lot of our staff are under 21, and we wanted them to be able to come out.”
Neptunes agreed to allow for the day party to be 18 and up.
“It’s not on purpose; there are a lot of laws for shows in bars and minors,” Brents said. “It can be an alienating factor for young people at music venues.”
The event was successful in its first incarnation, at least enough that all of the catered food for 300 people was gone within a half hour, according to Brown.
“This was our first time all coming together for something,” Brown said. “I think it led to a super diverse lineup.”
