When senior Lee Trotter signed up for a music management class, he wasn’t exactly sure what that would entail.

“I’m really interested in music and this was the first time that Cal Lutheran has offered a music management class… I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity and see what the class was all about,” Trotter said.

Evan Forster, who has worked  in the music industry for many years and has managed a number of artists, was hired to teach Music Industry Marketing.

The new class is designed to give students real world experience in music business.

“The class is basically a hybrid of sorts. We split the class with the artists on one side and the management, marketing and promotion on the other side. The course outline was 10 weeks. The class had guest speakers each week. The students had 10 weeks to put together a show, create a website, market the show and it culminates with the show itself at Kingsmen Park,” Forster said.

The show Forster is referring to is a music festival called Cal Lupalooza, which will take place on April 10 from 5 to 8 p.m.

“We have seven or eight performers and then four DJs,” said Austin Linkous, a sophomore who will be playing bass at the show, said. “The vibe is going to be changing. We are going to open up with some DJ’s to get people excited and then it will be slowing down with some more acoustic songs and then we will bring the energy right back up. It’s free, so everyone should come out.”

Cal Lupalooza is completely student run. Students like Trotter, who is a part of the marketing and sales team for Cal Lupalooza, have enjoyed taking what they have learned in the classroom and applying it to a real event.

“I’m a marketing major, so I’ve taken away a lot of marketing classes and being able to take my knowledge of marketing into a class like this is really nice. This class really had something for everyone, no matter what you were interested in,” Trotter said.

As a business marketing major along with his love of music, through the class senior Harrison Sands was exposed to the best of both worlds.

“The class realized that there is a lot of talent at this school and when everyone works together, the end product is something that will be great,” Sands said.

Forster’s goal is to expose his students to people and situations that they wouldn’t normally be exposed to in a regular class.

“This class is different compared to other classes in the sense that we take it one step further where the students implement what they have learnt to an actual event,” Forster said.

With a mix of genres and performers, there is sure to be something for everyone at Cal Lupalooza.

“I’m predicting that we will have a great turnout and I’m expecting Kingsmen Park to be great that night,” Trotter said.

On April 10, Kingsmen Park will be the stage for students to showcase what they have been working on for the semester in front of their peers.

Whether they will be performing on stage or not, all students in Forster’s class knows they contributed to the first ever Cal Lupalooza and are the foundation for a potentially new tradition at CLU.

Joshua Dwyer
Staff Writer
Published April 9, 2014