Every year for the last three years ETSU’s Buctainment has hosted Bucstock, and next semester in April will be no different.
“Bucstock is a yearly music festival,” said Buctainment President Sean Blayney. “This will be the fourth annual Bucstock, and it’s really just a massive event that we want to make into a kind of community thing.”
Bucstock is not only a music festival but a place for people and organizations to sell their goods.
In the past, people have sold their crafts or art during the festival, and next year, people will be able to continue this tradition.
“We are going to have two stages,” Blayney said. “One is going to be in the Quad and one is going to be in the Amphitheatre.
The Pride Walk in between them will have food trucks lined up on it, and then on the sidewalks in surrounding areas we’ll have our vendor section.
So, where students can come out and sell art, or organizations can come out and showcase their stuff.”
Although next year’s Bucstock will be similar to the ones in the past, the event is always changing and growing.
“Every year we kind of experiment a little differently,” Blayney said. “We add something we take away something cause we’re still trying to find that perfect set up.”
Bucstock will be hosting a wide variety of performers next year.
Buctainment organizers expect they will have about 14 performers, including the headliner, but the number has not been finalized. The organizers are, however, very excited about their headliner: A student D.J. who will be performing a paint show.
“We are doing a paint party,” Blayney said. “Instead of hiring an outside company there’s a guy who goes to school here who has his own DJ, lighting and paint business, so we’re actually going to get some student talent to come out and throw a paint party.”
To select the talent for Bucstock, Buctainment does research into the local community and past performances. Once they select a group or performer they will notify them and ask if they would be interested in performing.
“We mostly source local talent, so we reach out to the local coffee shops, we go on websites… you can look up area artist,” Blayney said. “We look at bands that have come beforehand, bands that we’ve brought as separate events, and we can kind of pick from there.”
Unfortunately, last year’s Bucstock did not do as well as they had hoped, due in part to heavy rain and the event’s proximity to exam time, but organizers are far more hopeful for this coming Bucstock.
“I would really just like to see it do better than last year,” Blayney said. “I want this to continue to grow and be like a huge thing in a year or two.”
