Are more celebrities coming to campus? Quavo’s performance at Western Uni. raises the bar for GTA schools

Western University in London, ON, recently secured American rapper Quavo for a hype performance, and it appears other universities in the GTA are interested in bringing more celebrities to campus. 

Western’s University Student Council (USC) created Purple Fest, a school-wide concert series to complement fall homecoming celebrations. 

However, it was forced to shut down before the pandemic to prevent too many students partying in the streets of residential neighbourhoods near campus, student newspaper Western Gazette reported. 

Purple Fest was reintroduced this year under current USC President Sunday Ajak, who frequently posted on social media about how he wanted to bring more celebrities and entertainers to the student body while he was running for council.

@president.sunday so nice of bro to show up!! 😎 @QuavoHuncho #quavohuncho #migos #westernuniversity #mcmasteruniversity #queensuniversity #laurieruniversity #uwo #fyp #unilife ♬ original sound – Sunday – Western’s President

Even before the Migos crew member came to Western, other artists like Nav, A$AP Rocky, A Boogie wit da Hoodie, Tyga, and even their own alumni Loud Luxury, performed at the school. 

READ MORE: From meeting at university to performing globally as Loud Luxury, the Canadian DJs are turning up the volume on their careers

It seems universities closer to Toronto are interested in hosting larger name artists as well.

Loud Luxury performed last year at the University of Toronto (UofT) to mark the school’s first concert in over a decade and over 2,000 students attended, UofT Students’ Union President Elizabeth Schechtman told Now Toronto. 

Aside from concerts, UofT community organization Project Freedom hosted Wu-Tang Clan founding member GZA as a guest lecturer on consciousness and creativity in 2013. 

“UofT is ranked first in Canada, and is a world renowned university. Undoubtedly, we are an academically focused university with large pressures to perform well as students. Although we are definitely not known to be a party school, we host many events and social gatherings for our students,” she said. 

Schechtman says there will be more effort to host more concerts for next year’s orientation.

Meanwhile, Toronto Metropolitan University hosted a major Nunavut pop concert featuring Angela Amarualik last fall. 

York University students saw rapper Big Sean on their stage in 2015, but it appears there haven’t been as many international performers since then, according to their events website.