Otherwise successful Juice Jam ends in disappointment after headline performance canceled

Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” played through the speakers at Skytop Field, but the feeling that every little thing was going to be alright had quickly evaporated. Juice Jam headliner Fetty Wap was already more than 15 minutes late to the stage, and with his history of bailing on gigs, fears that he would do the same Sunday began to form.

Those fears were validated when Mercy Lavado, Office of Student Activities’ faculty adviser to University Union, took the stage to announce that the rapper would not be appearing as scheduled. Juice Jam was over.

Anger ensued. Boos immediately rang out before Lavado could finish breaking the news. Students yelled obscenities at UU staff. Rocks were hurled toward the stage.

It was an ugly ending to an otherwise overwhelmingly successful day. LOLO and Stephen gave opening performances that seemed to satisfy the thin early crowd. Producer Marshmello had the main stage audience going wild. Rapper D.R.A.M. doubled down on the energy by bringing his hit single “Broccoli” to the indie stage. Pop star Tove Lo and her band gifted the crowd with music from a forthcoming album, and after capping her set with fan favorite “Habits (Stay High),” it was time for Fetty Wap to end it all with a bang.

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“This whole day was amazing, Fetty would have just been the icing on the cake,” said Keely Higgins, UU assistant public relations director.

Instead, travel complications led to Fetty Wap never making it to Skytop Field. He originally planned on driving, but ended up taking a jet. And by the time he arrived in Syracuse, it was already too late. UU couldn’t push back the set to accommodate the rapper’s late arrival because their permit only allowed the event to go on until 6 p.m. They had no choice but to call off Fetty Wap’s performance.

“The basics are that he arrived late and we couldn’t push the show and we did everything we could and we are no happier about it than every other student in the crowd,” UU co-concert director Erin Singleton said.

Singleton said she was unsure of whether UU would still be obligated to pay Fetty Wap, and that the matter would have to be renegotiated.

It was a nightmarish ending to a long setup process. Since May, Singleton and her co-director Rico Pedraza have put countless hours into booking the festival. They arrived Sunday morning around 6 a.m. The entire UU staff, consisting of dozens of volunteers, was there by about 8 a.m. Loads of catering and furniture were delivered to transform a rocky parking lot into a hospitable destination for six artists.

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But once doors opened at noon, it was a hectic day that couldn’t have ended in a more hectic way. And that stung.

“To put all that work in, all that effort in, and just have it kind of be discredited by a simple travel delay,” said Grant Nygaard, UU co-director of public relations. “Even though there was all that great music and activities — it was a beautiful day — it just really sucks that something like a small travel delay can mess all of that up.”

This is not the first time Fetty Wap had bailed on a school. In April, he failed to perform as scheduled at the State University of New York at Brockport. Afterwards, he apologized in a video posted to Instagram.

Singleton said she was under the impression the same would not happen at Juice Jam. UU had taken Fetty Wap’s shaky past into consideration, but considering the fact that things had gone smoothly in his appearances leading up to Sunday, they were confident he would fulfill his contract.

“We specifically asked how those shows went just so we could make sure, and they said everything was fine.” Singleton said.

It was a performance students were apparently very interested in seeing. All 9,500 tickets to the concert were gone four days after going on sale. And according to a survey UU holds every year, Fetty Wap was students’ number one choice as a direct support act — a role that he has undoubtedly outgrown with the success of songs like “Trap Queen,” “679” and “My Way.”

The survey’s results seem to be proven accurate by many students’ reactions to Sunday’s cancellation.

“It was sad, particularly since it’s my last year and we really wanted to see him, and I feel that that’s really disrespectful,” said William Kniesner, a senior in the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics. “I heard he had a reputation for being late, but I thought he would show up at some point.”

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Michelle Golonka, a senior studying television, radio and film, said she was surprised there wasn’t a riot.

“I went (to Juice Jam) only to have my heart broken by Mr. Wap,” she said.

While UU said they will release an official statement in the coming days, Singleton made it clear they want to make things right for students. After all, they’re students too.

“We are a student-driven organization so obviously we are going to want to alleviate it,” Singleton said. “We’re going to do everything we can to alleviate the situation and take every measure possible to hope it doesn’t happen again in the future.”