Phillip Vanderleest and Daniel Herrington are the student directors for Mississippi State University’s Music Makers
program.
The Reflector Gentlemen, the word on the street is that Music Makers has something big cooking in the lab. Can you confirm this?
Phillip Vanderleest: Yes, we confirm. We have our fall show set for October.
R: Would you care to elaborate?
Daniel Herrington: Well, formally announced as of today, Girl Talk will be playing at the Hump.
R: Venue information?
PV: The date of the show is Thursday, Oct. 8. The venue is Humphrey Coliseum, The Hump. The stage will be backed up to one end of the basketball court so that the whole floor will be open for standing room. Once the floor fills up, overflow seating will cascade into the bleachers in a horseshoe formation around the stage.
R: What about cost?
PV: Tickets for MSU students will be $10.
DH: – if purchased in advance. You will have until the day of the show to purchase discounted tickets; the day of the show, tickets will cost $20.
PV: With a student ID, any student can buy up to two tickets. You can get your tickets at the Bryan Building, where you get your football tickets.
R: Will this strictly be an MSU party?
PV: No, once you purchase your tickets, you may give them to anyone you please. No student ID is required to get into the show, just a ticket. We are selling tickets wholesale to the public on the internet at $15 a ticket. We’re going to be doing some pretty heavy promotion around the area so we expect a pretty wide range.
R: How many people are you capable of squeezing into this show?
PV: We put in a bid a couple years ago that would have been a couple thousand, I can’t remember the exact number.
DH: It’s somewhere very close to 8,000.
R: So if I’m a fan trying to get on the floor in the action, what do I do?
PV: Doors open at 7 p.m.; the show officially starts at 8 when our opening act Junk Culture starts. He’s a local guy from Oxford on Girl Talk’s label – should be good.
R: What motivated the decision to bring Girl Talk to Starkville?
DH: We’ve known for months that we wanted to make the fall show as big an event, as big a party as we possibly could. We’ve been planning this for quite a while, the hardest part has been keeping it quiet.
PV: We put out a Facebook group early in the summer and had thousands of people request artists they wanted to see. Girl Talk got the most votes by far. He has toured a bit in this region, most recently in Oxford last spring.
R: I was at that show.
PV: Really, how was it?
R: He managed to pack The Lyric to the point where you couldn’t move. It was sold out early, and I saw people outside paying hundreds for a ticket.
PV: Yeah, The Lyric can hold around 1,300 people.
DH: Guess that’s a good sign.
R: The date is the Thursday before Homecoming weekend?
DH: Yes. We’ve had some trouble in the past with Friday night shows for whatever reasons. We figured this way we could add a little more excitement to the weekend ahead. It was convenient when Blake Jeter (SA President) came to us and asked if we could do a show the Thursday before Homecoming (laughs) because we already had. We’re fortunate to have a solid relationship with the SA.
R: Do you think the students of MSU want something more out of their local music scene?
PV: I believe so, but if they really do, we need them to show it, especially with this concert. We have the capability and we’re pushing hard to bring much bigger acts to Starkville in the near future.
R: How much bigger?
PV: We can’t divulge too much information.
DH: We’re talking football stadium-sized shows.
PV: Maybe as early as next spring.
R: So what do you need from students?
DH: We need kids to get out and buy tickets in advance. There is no better way for us to show that Starkville has a commitment to live music than with ticket sales. This show is really a good deal and should be a great time.
PV: Our goal is to make this more than just a concert, we want it to be an event.
DH: I want to see people tailgating for this.
R: Should we be looking hard for more promotion before the show? Do you guys have anything special planned to pump the show?
PV: We have a Junction tailgate this weekend, we’ll be blaring Girl Talk all day. Look for ads on the jumbotron for the LSU and Georgia Tech games. Flyers and posters should be popping up around campus and town very soon. We have some promotionary ideas planned for giving away tickets. We’ll be posting those on our twitter page at twitter.com/Music_Maker. You can also reach us on Facebook, just search “Music Maker Productions.” Our Web site is mmp.org.msstate.edu.