Arms and phones raised in preparation as Kanye West’s “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” blasted through McCarthy Quad, building anticipation for headliner Ty Dolla $ign to step out on stage. 

Throughout Saturday evening, McCarthy Quad filled up for the annual Springfest hosted by USC Concerts Committee. The event featured a lineup of five artists, food vendor stops, giveaways and beverage stands all leading up to a fiery headline performance from Ty Dolla $ign.

Unlike last year’s Springfest, which was held at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, this year’s venue was scaled down to McCarthy Quad, a decision that Ryan Martinez, co-executive director of the Concerts Committee, said ultimately came down to budget and priorities for the event.

“The Coliseum was great, and I think we would have loved to have done the show there, but …  the Coliseum is really expensive,” said Martinez, a senior majoring in music industry. “We didn’t want to compromise the artist for the venue.” 

The process to select this year’s Springfest headliner began in October, when the Concerts Committee started sending offers to various artists. According to Martinez, Ty Dolla $ign was a choice that they felt would be familiar and popular among the student population. 

“Obviously, he’s a really big feature artist; he’s featured on a ton of songs, and he also just put out that one song, ‘DON’T KILL THE PARTY,’ that has been doing numbers,” Martinez said. “We figured that he would be a really awesome choice.”

The headlining performance was complete with pyrotechnics and hit songs, including “DON’T KILL THE PARTY” and “CARNIVAL,” as well as tracks from Ty Dolla $ign’s latest EP, “girl music vol. 1.” 

Some students, such as Lena Fukuoka-Schreiber, a freshman majoring in quantitative biology, said a lot of the songs from Ty Dolla $ign’s personal discography were unrecognizable for the crowd.

“I thought [the set] was good, but just because he is a feature on a lot of songs, I feel like the songs that he did play that were his own, no one really knew,” Fukuoka-Schreiber said. “He was singing and having us sing along, and no one knew what to say.”

Before the main act, the first performance of the night was by student group EASTWEST. The collective performed several popular fan favorites, like Justin Timberlake’s “Rock Your Body,” Rihanna’s “Work,” Leon Thomas’ “MUTT” and PinkPantheress’ “Stateside,” but all reworked as duets with vocals from Jordyn Diew and Suede Avery, both juniors majoring in popular music performance. The band also performed two original songs: “SHOW OUT” and “OUTRO.”

“As a band and as EASTWEST, we want to show how we are able to twist these songs to fit our band, and how we can employ our own sounds into these different types of genres, different types of music,” said Bakhari Nokuri, a junior majoring in composition and one of two EASTWEST founders. “We want to make a lot of songs familiar to a lot of different people.”

Luc Edouard, the other founding half of EASTWEST, said the set’s mission was to help USC students let loose and have fun dancing.

“A lot of our generation, it’s a bunch of moshing, but nobody likes to dance anymore,” said Edouard, a junior majoring in composition. “We have a set that people are going to want to dance to.”

EASTWEST’s performance was followed by trap artist GoVanni, whose set started off with a remix of “Tribute to Troy.” He then performed original songs, including “MATTY BOY” and “PSYCHO.”

“The biggest thing was involving it with USC and making it feel like it was a USC show,” said Giovanni Goree, aka GoVanni, a junior majoring in arts, technology and the business of innovation. “With my sets, they always are high energy and are very fun party sets, so I just wanted to bring that to USC.”

After a short intermission, alternative pop singer Lana Lubany took the stage and performed songs in English and Arabic, such as “NAZARETH” and “THE SNAKE,” highlighting the Concerts Committee’s collaboration with the Undergraduate Student Government’s Middle Eastern North African Student Assembly. 

“We want our lineup as a whole to be representative of the student body and their interests and what they listen to,” Martinez said. “That was a really big part of our collaboration with MENASA and having Lana on the bill; we really wanted to make sure that we’re touching on a lot of different parts of the student body with each of the acts that we booked.”

As the sun went down and beaming lights turned on, Frost Children walked on and performed a lively synth-pop set for the last opening act, which had the crowd flocking to the front of the venue. 

“It was very high energy,” said Daniel Atanasov, a freshman majoring in mechanical engineering. “The lights were moving throughout the entire time, and they kept the energy up.”

Frost Children’s performance electrified the audience with “ELECTRIC” and “Bound2U,” animating the crowd for the rest of the night.

“Frost Children was epic. They sent vibrations through the crowd,” said Cameron Levesque, a freshman majoring in cinematic arts, film and television production. “You could feel McCarthy Quad shake.”