9th annual Eagle Radio Music Festival rocks the FGCU campus

Florida Gulf Coast University held the 9th annual Eagle Radio Music Festival, which exposed students to live local acts on the campus’ front lawn.

The event took place Thursday evening and included free food for attendees, airbrush artists and live music. This festival, which has been going on since 2016, is student-run and hosted by Eagle Radio.

To promote the shows, Eagle Radio’s team conducted tiny desk performances similar to NPR’s tiny desk concerts, showcasing each performer’s genre of music.

Camryn Sargis, Eagle Radio’s Station Manager, had been working on the show for several months alongside Victoria Foltz, Executive Editor and Connor Hay, Business Manager and other members of the Eagle Media team.

“There was a lot of work that was put into this event,” Sargis said. “I’ve been doing most of the contact with the artists and just making sure everything runs smoothly. It is my first year doing it, so it’s exciting to kind of like see the team come together to put all this on.”

Sargis and her team spent months devising themes, vendors and various contests to entertain students on campus.

“We wanted to make sure that there was a variety within the genres and like the themes just so it wasn’t strictly rap and everybody could come and have something they liked,” Sargis said. “We wanted people to be able to get familiar with their music and their faces and their sound before coming to the festival.”

Each artist had to audition, with only 10 being selected, some of those including DONEFOR, Fiendish Thingies, LUVXR and Shy Blossom.

The bands expressed their experiences performing and the history of their relationship with FGCU.

DONEFOR, a local multi-genre-infused metal band, found their start at this event.

Riley Stewart, the band’s guitarist and a former FGCU student who majored in legal studies, remembers the first time the radio fest was hosted.

“I think I was like really one of the people that started the festival, like band wise, because the first every year that they did this, I think there were only one or two bands, and it was my band,” said Stewart. “At the time, it was a cover band, so I’ve been playing here the last five years, since 2021. In the years after that, it grew like crazy”.

After changing names, the band assembled as DONEFOR, and the rest is history. As a local band, they have seen the progression of the festival over the years.

“I think it’s really just the culture of FGCU because you don’t think of FGCU as a super musically inclined school, but all of a sudden, whenever you do something like this, people come out of the woodwork, and you’re like, wow, I didn’t know that there were people like this,” Stewart said.

Stewart had a message for local artists and listeners.

“I want to encourage people to go out and support local music. It’s very important, especially nowadays, with big record labels just shoving artists down your throat,” said Stewart. “If you want to have the power to listen to what you want and have good music come out, you have to support local music.”

Fiendish Thingies is an indie-themed band of two brothers that returned to Eagle Radio Music Festival.

Austin Stanley, the band’s drummer, is a junior majoring in marketing at FGCU. He talked about his love for performing.

“It’s been great. I love performing. Honestly, it’s the best part of doing music,” Stanley said. “Just like being there, the vibes are always great, seeing people that you don’t even know come to support you and say, ‘Hey, I like your music, even though I never met you before.'”

Despite living far from his brother, the band continues to make music. They just released their newest single, “The Wait,” and plan to return to Eagle Radio Festival and continue performing locally.

“For sure, definitely next year at least, because next year will be my senior year, so definitely do that, and then I’m sure we’ll perform more in the Fort Myers area,” said Stanley.

Solo artist Aiden Viera, AKA LUVXR, is a junior at FGCU. He said he has changed his style after last year’s festival.

He is inspired by underground rap and artists such as Juice Wrld and XXXTentacion, stating that they are still prevalent in his style today. He said the new underground rap wave inspires him.

“I started playing music while being interested in it. I’d say around 12 years old. I started playing guitar. That was from XXXTentacion, ’cause I wanted to learn his songs,” said LUVXR. “Then when I came to around 16, I had my first actual breakup, so I was like, let’s try music.”

He took the inspiration from this heartbreak to shape his music career. As LUVXR progress in his music, he has a few goals to accomplish.

“I’m going to perform on Rolling Loud, hit one million streams and I’m going to do Eagle Fest one more time before I graduate,” said LUVXR.

Shy Blossom, a SWFL alt-rock quintet, was excited to play at Eagle Radio Festival for the first time.

Adriana McDonald, the band’s singer and acoustic guitar player, said, “I’m just excited to play and meet new people.”

The band was looking for more events to play at when her family discovered the festival.

“My dad looks around for a whole bunch of things for us, and that’s how we found out about it,” McDonald said.

After performing at the festival, the band wants to continue pushing for more performances and increasing its fanbase.

For more information on Eagle Radio, click here.