Big acts to play Fanshawe's 50th anniversary celebration concert

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: HEDLEY (UNIVERSAL MUSIC CANADA) BARENADKED LADIES (VANGUARD RECORDS) BRAVE SHORES (UNIVERSAL MUSIC CANADA)
Fanshawe will host its 50th anniversary concert with a trio of Canadian acts including Hedley, the Barenaked Ladies and Brave Shores on Sept. 9 at Budweiser Gardens.

Fanshawe is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a number of events, but the biggest of them all is a concert at Budweiser Gardens on Sept. 9.

According to a Feb. 23 Fanshawe Corporate Communications press release, the concert titled Fanshawe at 50: Live in Concert will see a trio of Canadian bands headline the event and is presented by Johnson Insurance.

This event is an exclusive and invitation only concert for those connected to Fanshawe, such as alumni, retirees, staff and students.

The bands include British Columbia pop-rock band Hedley, along with the legendary Barenaked Ladies and Toronto-based electro pop band Brave Shores.

“This concert will represent more than just the biggest event in College history,” Fanshawe president, Peter Devlin said. “It will be an exciting celebration befitting an institution that prides itself on being innovative.”

According to Tony Frost, executive director of the College’s Reputation and Brand Management, planning for this event has been a continuous process starting late last summer, and is continuously being worked on.

The event was planned through a group from both the academic side, as well as a variety of areas across the college, and partnered with Budweiser Gardens, Jones Entertainment Group (JEG) as well as the Fanshawe Student Union (FSU), Frost said.

“What kept on coming up was a big significant event to mark the year. A large celebration, an anniversary, almost like a birthday party if you will and so we started to conceptualize what would this look like, what would this be and it tended to get bigger as we started talking and it grew.”

Frost stated Budweiser Gardens was chosen as the venue not only for its size and the fact that it’s well equipped to handle large events, but because it’s an “iconic institution” for the city of London and a number of graduates would have been there before.

According to Frost, the event will not only be the concert, but will acknowledge the history of the college through displays and videos. These will look to both the historical and forward-looking approach of the college in terms of what Fanshawe has done in the past and what it will do in the future.

Frost went on to say that the concert will also hold a VIP event for partners of the college beforehand, and there will be a grand entrance set up, with Music Industry Arts (MIA) students also in various spots around the venue.

“It’s going to be a pretty complex event with lots of moving parts, but it’ll all come together,” Frost said.

There will be more details released as time goes on, but Frost said some bits of information will only be found out once people are at the event.

In terms of the planning the Canadian acts for the concert, Frost said the group has to figure out what the acts would look like and what genre of music would be best to have.

“That actually was the most fun, engaging, exciting piece for the whole planning, because everyone has an opinion of who should come,” Frost said. “What we ultimately landed on was the idea that if Fanshawe was Canada’s pathfinder and we really wanted to say, ‘Hey we’re proud of our Canadian heritage, our Canadian brand profile, we talk about being Canada’s pathfinder’, we said what better thing then to hire some Canadian acts.”

Frost said the music needed to be cross generational and appealing to a broad audience, which is how Hedley and the Barenaked Ladies came about. Both bands are commercially and critically successful and have had a significant presence for a fair amount of time, according to Frost.

Frost said the group turned to the FSU for ideas of an opening act that would complete the two headliners’ musical styles. According to Frost, the planning group wanted the opening act focused and geared towards first years and in the end, Brave Shores was chosen.

“They’re great, they’re a lot of fun and I think they’ll be a great opening kickoff to the event,” Frost said.

So far the reaction of this event has been positive.

“Based on the reaction that we’re getting, people are over the moon that we would be bringing in talent like that for the show, especially at the cost. Both Hedley and Barenaked Ladies have come into town in the last couple of years and the ticketing prices are significantly more. I think people are very excited and happy about being able to buy some tickets to go see all those bands, in one evening,” Frost said.

Tickets will be on sale March 10 for a limited time, and will only be available for a limited amount. Those invited will receive an email from the college, and will then get a code to purchase tickets. Frost said alumni who have not given their updated email to the college, can connect with them as soon as possible.

Tickets are $37.50 for level two and $50 for level one while the floor will be for future first years who will be able to get tickets if and when they purchase a frosh kit.

“I could say that this is the single largest event in our history and it’s the single largest event in the sector,” Frost said. “We wanted to be able to say, you know what, let’s celebrate this in style, so it is the biggest event in the sector, so we’re pretty excited about that as well. There’s no other [Ontario] college doing this sort of thing, bringing in this level of talent, having a party with potentially up to 9,000 people,” Frost said.