Since 1986, FEST has been the signature end-of-year celebration for DePaul students featuring music, food and activities. This year, the festival ditched its usual location on Lincoln Park’s Quad and took place in the DePaul Welcome Center parking lot. The event’s shift into a music festival-style lineup rather than promoting one major headliner and opener gave it a whole new look compared to past years.
Local artists shared the stage, including some signed to DePaul’s record label, Blue Demon Records. The festival lineup included artists DJ Eve, Sample Quincy, Zercher, Moyana, DJ Ca$h Era and Kaicrewsade.
“We had a focus on reimagining the event,” said Courtney James, head of the Office of Student Involvement. “We pay attention to what events students are really interested in, and then we do focus groups, and we do different surveys to see what works well with students. It really informed a lot of the decisions in the event design this year.”
Starting at 4 p.m., students began piling into the parking lot, surrounded by a multitude of free food, carnival rides and activities. This year’s FEST featured a rocking climbing wall, face painting and balloon animals for students to enjoy at no cost, all organized by the DePaul Activities Board.
Senior Aiden O’Neal, a program activities specialist and organizer for DAB, said he enjoys the process of planning and hosting events like these. He hopes to put on similar events in his future career.
“I take a lot of it in steps,” O’Neal said. “It was a really cool opportunity because you get to work with cool artists, and a bunch of other people, and just learn your way around the music industry.”
A spraypainter graffities a bucket hat on Friday, May 15 in the University Welcome Center parking lot. This year’s FEST featured a rocking climbing wall, face painting and balloon animals for students to enjoy at no cost, all organized by the DePaul Activities Board.
Some of these changes come after challenges the festival has faced in past years.
In 2025, headliner A Boogie Wit da Hoodie cancelled just 90 minutes before he was set to perform due to air traffic delays caused by a dust storm. And in 2024, DePaul FEST was cancelled following the pro-Palestine encampment on the Quad.
This year’s FEST received mixed responses from students after DAB announced changes in February of this year. Some students associated these changes with DePaul’s ongoing budget strain. University Communications said the changes to the festival were “programmatic and focused on student engagement.”
However, throughout the event, students spoke positively of the changes made, from freshmen to returning FEST attendees.
“I really enjoy that DePaul has stuff like this for free for students,” said freshman English major Laura Martens. “Being a college student, you don’t have a lot of money. So having something I can come out and do with my friends that has activities and games, it’s really great.”
Sophomore film major Meaghan Levy, who attended FEST last year, had more mixed feelings on the changes.
“I liked it better on the Quad. It’s a nicer area,” Levy said. “I never really know who the music artists are anyway, so it makes no real difference to me.”
Despite the changes and initial skepticism from students, FEST still drew a large crowd of students throughout the five hours it operated.
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