PennWest California is hosting Rich the Kid in the Convocation Center on Thursday, April 24, with the doors opening at 7 p.m. and the show starting at 8 p.m.
Along with Rich the Kid, the show will open with a DJ battle between two PennWest students, Ryan Zimmerman and Isaac Sharpeta. Following, DJ Rocco Magone will go on before Rich the Kid is set to take the stage.
Zimmerman, or DJ Pinky, is a senior majoring in commercial music technology, and he picked up DJing in the seventh grade.
According to Zimmerman, this is set to be the largest audience he’s played for, as he usually mixes at smaller events, like for his fraternity Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI).
“It’s a little nerve-wracking thinking about performing in front of all of those people,” Zimmerman said.
Although nervous, he also expressed that he is eager for the exact same reason.
“A bunch of my friends are like, ‘this is super cool’,” he said, “I know they are super excited to come see it and be there to support me and have a good time.”
DJ Sharpeta is a junior mechatronics engineering major and computer science minor who has been a professional DJ with Second II None Productions since 2018 when he began the job with no prior experience as a sophomore in high school.
S2N offers the Pittsburgh area DJ entertainment, photography, and photobooths for weddings and other events.
This position was offered to him without experience because he knew somebody related to the owner.
“The owner trained me, and by training me that was taking me along to a huge wedding with probably 300 people, told me to do ‘this, this, and this’, then immediately got on the mic to introduce us,” Sharpeta said. “I pretty much learned by just doing it on the job.”
According to Sharpeta, in his seven years in the industry, he has DJed over 150 weddings and a total of at least 200 events when factoring in the occasional sets at Don Patron’s on Wood Street in California and events with his fraternity Sigma Tau Gamma.
“What excites me most is that it’s a different type of event,” Sharpeta said. “All the events I usually do are the same, but this is like we have a whole production and concert going on and a battle with somebody, so that’s different.”
Zimmerman mentioned that the idea for the DJ battle initially came about from circulating Yik Yak posts on the PennWest California community page.
Yik Yak is an anonymous social networking site, where users are able to view and interact with posts made to the communities they are a part of.
According to Zimmerman, these posts on Yik Yak gained a lot of traction and PennWest Cal’s Student Activities Board (SAB) jumped on the idea and asked if they’d be willing to open the show.
Sharpeta said they were originally contacted in January about opening the show while SAB was still in the process of getting contracts finalized for the main act, Rich the Kid.
They will be given 30 minutes for their portion of the concert, and Sharpeta said they will get about 15 minutes each to perform.
Neither Zimmerman nor Sharpeta know how the competition will be judged or if there will be a prize, so attendees can look forward to learning more as the event date draws closer.
Tickets are open to purchase for all students and the general public. Student tickets range from $10-$15 with access to floor tickets, while the tickets for the public are $15 and are restricted to the bowl.
According to an email sent to students by the university, those who purchase tickets before April 4 will be entered into a giveaway and are able to win prizes like Vulcan Nation t-shirts, gift cards, and more.
Those interested in securing tickets for the concert can visit https://secure.touchnet.net/C20630_ustores/web/store_main.jsp?STOREID=30&SINGLESTORE=true.
