Adult Swim’s first ever music festival kicked off Friday, Oct. 5 at the ROW DTLA in downtown Los Angeles. The festival included performances from T-Pain, Metro Boomin, Trippie Redd, Thundercat, Run The Jewels, Flying Lotus, Big Freedia and Hannibal Burress, among others. Occidental’s Office of Student Life handed out free weekend passes to the festival on the Academic Quad the week preceding the festival, allowing many students to attend for free.
Occidental students were able to get festival passes for free, but general admission tickets were priced at $49 for the Friday night preview and $255 for a weekend pass. Gabe Peterkin (first year) found an Adult Swim flyer on the ground, which granted free admission to the Friday night preview featuring Metro Boomin and T-Pain.
“Then I found out that the [Office of Student Life] was also giving them out, so I took a couple for my friends because a lot of people didn’t know it was going on,” Peterkin said.
Eclectic decorations and installations reflected Adult Swim’s imaginative and comedic programming. Festival-goers waited in a line to ride a giant mechanical hot dog. One gigantic inflatable Rick, from Adult Swim’s popular animated sitcom, “Rick and Morty,” dangled from one of the adjacent parking garages.
“There were these inflatable Rick and Mortys about 20 feet tall. There were virtual reality games going on,” Peterkin said.
On Sunday, the festival featured “Musical Ricksperience,” a 37-piece orchestra led by the show’s musical composer Ryan Elder. “Musical Ricksperience” played the live soundtrack as the corresponding episode aired on a screen.
“There was a lot of different Adult Swim-themed stuff that was kind of cool. For Adult Swim fanatics, I feel like it was really cool,” Peterkin said.
Clare Considine (first year) also attended Friday night after receiving a free flyer for the preview.
“I think it was a really cool concept of having comedy and music together. I think it was an interesting venue and a cool idea for a startup festival, kind of different,” Considine said.
According to Los Angeles Magazine, the ROW DTLA complex at 7th and Alameda streets was built between 1917 and 1923 as a market hub along the Southern Pacific Railroad. Originally opened as the Los Angeles Terminal Mart, a large amount of America’s produce was sold at the sprawling industrial complex at one point. A hundred years later, the historic market continues to be a hub for produce distribution across the region, but also features a variety of stores, restaurants, office spaces and venues.
“The location was kind of weird; it was this kind of run down, industrial, sketchy part of LA, which was weird, but I guess it was a cheaper venue. Once you got inside, you didn’t really care about where it was anymore because it was just this big concert where you focused on whoever was performing,” Peterkin said.
Markus Dueker-Ramirez (first year) attended the festival Saturday night after obtaining a free wristband from a friend.
“Originally, the decorations underwhelmed me, but then I saw that they were projecting giant images on the side of the ROW Downtown LA buildings, and that was pretty impressive,” Dueker-Ramirez said.
The line up included artists from a wide range of genres, including indie, hip-hop, metal and electronic music.
“My favorite part was the performances of Metro Boomin and T-Pain. I’m actually a pretty big T-Pain fan. I listen to a lot of his new stuff and a lot of his remixes on popular songs,” Peterkin said.
T-Pain turned heads in a black suit decked out with glittery dollar signs. Images from Adult Swim cartoons flashed in the background while he performed.
“I really liked T-Pain’s set; I think he had a lot of good energy. I liked all the visuals they had behind him,” Considine said.
According to Dueker-Ramirez, it was a small venue for big-name artists such as Trippie Redd and Thundercat.
“I really enjoyed the event … My favorite part of the night was being able to get so close to Trippie Redd when he came out into the crowd. That was pretty sweet,” Dueker-Ramirez said.
