After bringing Lil Yachty, Migos and Common to campus in recent years, MUSIC Matters’s 2018 SpringFest will be headlined by Louis the Child. The Chicago-based duo will play at Hill Auditorium on April 4 as part of the organization’s annual social impact lifestyle festival.
The largest festival of its kind to be held on a college campus, SpringFest was created six years ago with the objective of uniting the University of Michigan and the Ann Arbor communities through art and culture. Billed as a “lifestyle festival,” SpringFest is a daylong festival boasting free musical performances on a day stage, art installations, food trucks, a fashion show and pop-up shops.
In a release, MUSIC Matters President Matt Ladis noted: “The goal of SpringFest is to provide a vehicle that unites all corners of Michigan’s campus and the broader community through lifestyle elements such as arts, music, social impact, technology and food.”
Louis the Child will cap off the day with their performance at Hill. Louis the Child rose to fame primarily through viral remixes and singles like “It’s Strange,” as well as opening spots for similar artists like the Chainsmokers and Madeon. Since then, they’ve performed at festivals like Coachella, Lollapalloza and Ultra. Last year, they released the EP Love is Alive. This is the duo’s first SpringFest appearance, and Louis the Child was last in Ann Arbor in 2016 when they headlined a show at the Blind Pig.
The group’s electronic sound is a departure from previous years, where the festival was headlined by one or multiple hip-hop artists. Last year, MUSIC Matters brought 2 Chainz, Desiigner and Lil Yachty to the Crisler Center and, in 2016, the group brought Atlanta trio Migos to Hill. Louis the Child will mark the first time a group of this nature headlines the festival.
“Electronic music has never touched the stage in Hill Auditorium at such a large scale,” MUSIC Matters Talent and Concert Chair Sam Reisman said in the release.
A portion of ticket sales for the show will go towards funding MUSIC Matters’s new initiative, “CoMMunity Partnership,” a grant the organization will provide to a philanthropic student organization at the University. This year, for its first partnership, MUSIC Matters will be giving its grant to Books for a Benefit.
Books for a Benefit seeks to promote literacy by providing access to books and other academic resources to underserved youth in Michigan schools. Co-founded by CSG Vice President Nadine Jawad, the Books for Benefit Chapter at the University has a network of 200 volunteers. The festival will feature a showcase of the organization.
The festival’s social focus extends to all aspects of the day, and 2018’s iteration will be a zero-waste event with environmentally-friendly food trucks and social activism showcases among the arts and culture events.
A full line-up for the daytime component of the festival is still to come.
“We are thrilled with our artist selection for the night portion as well as the programming we have in store for the day, all of which should make for the most dynamic SpringFest yet,” Ladis said in the release.
Tickets to the show at Hill will start at $9.99 for students and $14.99 for the general public. They will go on sale Thursday, Feb. 8 at noon for in-person sales through the Michigan Union Ticket Office, by phone and through MUSIC Matters’s official site.