Last Friday, students gathered at Baltimore’s Pier Six Pavilion to see pop singer Ke$ha perform live. The doors for the event opened at 6:30 p.m. and the show began at 8:00 p.m.
Hopkins students were able to purchase a limited number of tickets for the concert before the tickets became available to the general public. Tickets went on sale to students on July 19 at 10 a.m. for $25. Tickets for the general public were available for $45 per ticket. Both the discounted student tickets and the tickets to the general public sold out.
The Hopkins Organization for Programming (HOP), arranged the concert. The HOP is a programming board that consists of more than twenty students. The HOP helped coordinate events in the past such as the Grouplove concert last spring and the Amazing Race in the spring of 2012.
“[The HOP] is dedicated to fostering fun and enjoyable memories on an otherwise library-centric campus. We started working with the Pier Six Pavilion in early summer to co-sponsor this event and, as you can see, all worked out amazingly in the end,” Jonathan Hunt, co-Chair of the HOP, said.
Opinions of the concert were varied. While the majority of students interviewed stated that they were entertained, many felt that the concert was too short and expressed disappointed about Ke$ha’s singing performance.
“I think she fell short,” freshman Anastasia Moszkowski said. “First of all, the concert was very short and the venue was not right for the type of music. I do think that [Ke$ha] has talent, but not in singing.”
Freshman Eric Smiley agreed.
“[On a scale from one to 10], Ke$ha was a three and a half. She met my expectations. She made up for her [in]ability by giving the crowd an entertaining performance,” Smiley said.
Other students expressed more positive opinions.
“It exceeded expectations. I would go again in a heartbeat,” sophomore Summer Rak said. “My favorite part was definitely the fun encore that Ke$ha gave. I didn’t like the opening act, T. Mills.”
24-year-old rapper T. Mills from Riverside, Calif. opened the show.
Despite the mixed reviews about the concert itself, Pier Six Pavilion was well-received.
“The staging was cool and the venue was surprisingly well set-up,” junior Juliana Vigorito said. “My friends were happy, and they’re not the typical Ke$ha crowd.”
Some Hopkins students also enjoyed the representation of students from all over Maryland at the concert, including those from Towson and Loyola.
“The atmosphere of the venue was great, and it was nice to see a variety of students from colleges throughout Maryland there,” junior Ben Kupferberg said. “I think one thing that could have been improved was the number of buses, or coordination to direct students to the buses. I know a lot of my friends took cabs home.”
The Hopkins shuttles, organized by the HOP, ran every 15 minutes between 6:15 and 8:15. Students said that the shuttle service had room for improvement.
“I didn’t take buses and don’t know anyone who did, so maybe this could be better,” Vigorito said.
This is not the first concert that Hopkins has coordinated with Pier Six Pavilion.
Last year, then sophomore Joshua Goodstein and then senior Wyatt Larkin, two former members of the Student Government Association (SGA), with assistance from Dean Susan Boswell, Janet Kirsch at the Office of Student Affairs and associates at the Pier Six Pavillion, spearheaded the organization of an Avicii concert on Sept. 21.
Similar to this year’s Ke$ha concert, Hopkins students were offered discounted tickets to the Avicii concert. Tickets for last year’s Avicii concert also sold out.
“These concerts are a great step for Hopkins. It was a great step in providing fun events for students, off campus. [There] used to be a concert in the gym my freshmen year, but now it’s in downtown Baltimore. Definitely much better,” Kupferberg said.
