Concordia’s new club is bringing large-scale music events to the university.
When Husam Tannira first pitched his club to Concordia University in July, he already had something bigger in mind. The beginning of the Fall 2024 semester saw the beginnings of ElectroCon, Montreal’s first on-campus club dedicated to electronic music.
Tannira, the club’s president, immediately began promoting its first event, ElectroFest, which he considered a big step for student life.Despite the usual back-to-school activities, he believed Concordia was missing a large-scale event, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If you look at other universities, they’re throwing concerts and music festivals; they set up stages and bring artists,” he said, citing McGill’s recently revived Concert Series and Western University’s Purple Fest as key inspirations for his own event. “If they can do all that, I don’t know why we can’t. Montreal is a student city; we’re famous for just having fun all the time.”
The first edition of Electrofest was held on Sept. 21 at New City Gas. The popular EDM music venue holds 2500 people, and the club mainly chose it for its proximity to campus.
The event was headlined by American EDM duo Twinsick, who are popular at college parties. The bill also included three student DJs.
“DJ Layout was a Concordia student, he’s from Quebec. We got Dance Engine; they’re three guys, all engineering students, some from McGill, some from Concordia,” Tannira explained. “Then we’ve got Aniika, she is our queen from Concordia. That’s actually how we introduced her at [CSU event] Aire Commune. Her set there was really good, so we offered her to come play for us at New City Gas.”
Aniika is currently in her third year studying liberal arts.
“It was surreal to see my name on posters all over campus,” said Aniika.
“The beginning of my DJ career actually has to do with school; my first ever gig was last fall for my program’s Halloween event, so to be playing in one of Montreal’s largest venues for the first edition of ElectroFest nearly a year later is something out of a dream,” she said. “New City Gas has hosted some of the most renowned DJs and artists, and I did not foresee my debut there occurring so rapidly.”
Affordability was a priority for ElectroCon, with tickets starting at just $10 for Concordia students. This affordable price point was encouraged and made possible by collaborating with the Concordia Student Union (CSU).
“The student union was more than happy to add this event as part of their Campus Kickoff campaign,” Tannira said. “They were willing to put down some money of their own, as long as students wouldn’t have to pay much since it would be part of orientation.”
One of the club’s most significant challenges was promotion, which it was forced to undertake mostly independently. Outside the CSU, Tannira noticed a challenging lack of support from other clubs and associations.
“When we asked some associations: ‘Would you guys like to at least share this for us?,’ they were like: ‘No, we have a strict policy, we don’t share stuff,’” he said. “We even had posters on the walls that got taken down and torn apart by another student group.”
As a result, ElectroCon opted for an omnipresent marketing strategy: printing and placing flyers, stickers, and posters all around campus, attending Concordia events and fairs to promote the event, giving away free tickets, and posting reels and a sponsored ad on Instagram.
The first edition was a success, drawing over a thousand attendees with less than two weeks of promotion. Attendees were fully into the performance, jumping, shouting, and proving that the demand for such an event was more than present.
“I couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve achieved. It’s the result of our hard work and dedication, but this is just the start,” said marketing major and co-founder Samy Gaudet.
ElectroCon confirmed on Instagram that the festival will return next year, with more events to follow before then.