Tiësto added to list of similar Little 500 electronic music acts

Bounce Music Festival announced Wednesday that European DJ Tiësto will be joining the Little 500 week lineup, adding to the list of electronic musicians already scheduled, including Afrojack, Robbie Riviera and Laidback Luke.

Tiësto, along with Alesso and Tim Mason, will be performing from 4 to 10 p.m. April 19 at Pic-A-Chic Farms, a plot of land south of Bloomington that has served as the site of past acts such as Avicii and Lazy Rich. There will be shuttle buses transporting attendees between campus and the farm.

Tickets will go on sale Sunday and presale tickets will cost $35. More information is available on bouncemusicfestival.com.

Jared Lyons, Bounce Music Festival co-founder, said the response from IU students to the announcement has been overwhelming — a search for “Tiesto” on Twitter reveals multiple pages of students tweeting their excitement.

“I Honestly can’t believe this. Can’t wait to get tickets... Tiesto at Little 5!! IU always doing it big!” Preston Meador tweeted last night.

But since the John Mayer act was cancelled due to a throat condition, Sublime with Rome is the only major concert that falls outside of the electronic or rap genres.

“Sublime with Rome is stoner music, and all these dubstep so-called-artists are overrated,” junior Kate Miller said. “Mac Miller is just about the only act that is anywhere close to my music taste, and I’m not even a big enough fan to attend
that show.”

Dancing Astronaut employee Fred Hwang is helping to coordinate the Sigma Alpha Epsilon “State of Emergency” concert April 18. The show will include performances from Afrojack, Shermanology and David Solano.

“Students are really into this dance music, but colleges don’t usually get to see the cool concerts because they focus on bigger cities,” he said.

Hwang said dubstep is the up-and-coming genre and music production companies are trying to keep up with the new demand.

Bloomingtonelectronic.com, an online resource for electronic music, demonstrates the popularity of the genre in Bloomington. Mark Kunoff founded the site in 2010 to feature informative articles about the music, event listings and interviews with local artists.

Miller said she is aware of how popular dubstep or electronic is — she said she is even guilty of enjoying the music while she’s out at the bars — but is disappointed by the lack of choices for Little 500.

“I see Little 500 as a mini music festival,” Miller said. “But all the best festivals have variety, which is something definitely lacking in this year’s lineup.”

Dubstep and electronic fans will be excited about the lack of variety, but concert promoters might have a difficult time making their own productions stand out from the rest.

“Tiësto is a world-renowned name,” Lyons said. “He’s huge. He’s next-level big compared to Afrojack and some of the other names coming. We’re putting over half a million dollars into productions students won’t want to miss this.”