By: Caitlin Kingsmill, News Writer

The Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) Fall Kickoff Music Festival is returning to the SFU Burnaby campus for the first time since 2019. The festival will be held on September 20 from 4:00 to 10:00 p.m. at East Parking Lot, with tickets costing between $50–65. The event will feature a musical lineup of artists and DJs, food trucks, and more. 

The Peak interviewed Chitransh Motwani, SFSS vice president of events and student affairs. “We wanted to give students an opportunity to celebrate together, fostering a stronger sense of community and belonging, which has been a priority for us,” he said.

When planning for the event, Motwani said he was inspired by larger music festivals like FVDED In The Park in Surrey and Badlands Music Festival in Calgary, and wanted to offer SFU students a similar experience at a “significantly cheaper price.” The lineup features Troyboi, Wuki, Felix Cartal, Asad Khan, and Seb C.

Motwani said this year’s festival will be the first at SFU to incorporate a variety of third-party vendors that supply food, drinks, and brand activations. He explained that his goal was to cater to a wide audience, ensuring that attendees would remain entertained for all six hours of the festival even if they didn’t know all the musical artists. The festival is being organized in collaboration with Blueprint, a Vancouver-based events company, and The Forum SFU, a student events organization.

“It is definitely a really huge event in terms of manpower.” — Chitransh Motwani, vice president of events and student affairs, SFSS

Over 40 student volunteers assisted with the festival’s marketing and on-campus student outreach efforts. “It is definitely a really huge event in terms of manpower,” said Motwani. He added that an event this size typically takes around six months to organize, but it was already in the planning stages prior to the beginning of his term at SFSS in May of 2024. “But, there was definitely a bit of hurrying in terms of getting things finalized and trying to put everything into place with so many stakeholders.” 

Motwani said some challenges of planning the event included rebuilding a network of contacts that were lost throughout the five-year hiatus. These included contacts within SFU and external contacts for sponsorships and vendors. 

According to Motwani, the SFSS could not host the festival until now as they faced COVID-19 restrictions and “lost an enormous amount of money back in 2019” as the last music festival resulted in a deficit. 

“While SFU has been experiencing budget deficits, the SFSS operates independently, and SFU’s finances don’t directly impact our budget,” he said. “We’ve had funds specifically allocated to support large-scale events like this for the student body, and we’ve worked carefully to ensure that we could bring this event back without compromising other student services.” SFU estimated an annual deficit of $20.9 million for the 2023/24 fiscal year and $49.9 million for the 2024/25 fiscal year.

“It has definitely been a challenging ride,” said Motwani. “But, happy to really say that SFU has supported us as much as they can and multiple departments have been helping organize this and bringing back the party to the campus.”