Jason Derulo to take students dancing at virtual Bigelow Bash

Pitt’s new shelter-in-place guidelines have once again confined students to four walls. Now, from the comfort of your room, Pitt Program Council brings students a Jason Derulo concert to celebrate Bigelow Bash virtually.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, PPC will hold this year’s Bigelow Bash via Zoom Friday at 8 p.m. Singer, songwriter, dancer and entertainer Jason Derulo is a top artist with more than 12 billion global streams and 190 million singles sales. Derulo started his career in 2009 with the hit “Whatcha Say” and most recently released “Savage Love.”

The format of the event will mirror other concerts Pitt Program Council has hosted since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, outgoing public relations director Danielle Moss explained.

“It’s going to be a virtual concert. It’s pretty much the same format as all of our virtual concerts have been so far. The artist comes, and they play a few songs and at the end is student questions,” Moss, a senior neuroscience major, said.

Moss said students interested in attending the event should find the Zoom link the day of the event and watch the concert live Friday night at 8 p.m.

“All of our events are recorded for archival purposes but they are not shared recordings. So any student or faculty that want to watch the events has to do so live,” Moss said.

Moss said planning this event was similar to planning Bigelow Bash in the past, even though this event won’t occur in person. According to Moss, Reagan King, PPC’s special events director, and the special events committee worked closely to bring this virtual event to students.

“The general gist of it is pretty much the same. The special events director and special events committee come up with a list of names of people that they want to perform. And then our adviser has a contact within the industry and he gives them the names and figures out who’s available and if the day and time they’re available works,” Moss said.

Moss said this virtual event will differ from previous iterations of Bigelow Bash, since there are fewer students in Oakland, and since campus is in a shelter-in-place. In the past, Bigelow Bash was a large outdoor concert that took place on Bigelow Boulevard outside the William Pitt Union. The event would have food trucks and other opening acts. Last year’s Bigelow Bash, which Rico Nasty and Young M.A were supposed to headline, was canceled on March 12, 2020, due to the onset of the pandemic. The last Bigelow Bash took place in April 2019 when T-Pain headlined the concert.

“It’s very different. Usually we try to collab with someone else. One year we did arts fest, right in front of the Union there was tables and all these different clubs came,” Moss said. “We also usually try to do food trucks for one of our concerts, it usually is Bigelow Bash.”

With the event occurring virtually, students miss out on some aspects of Bigelow Bash, but incoming public relations director Nicholas Jones said the ability to interact with Derulo is something that is only possible in this format.

“I think one pro would definitely be the Q&A at the end. We get students more involved with posting on our Instagram to ask questions directly to Jason. It’s more interactive that way with the performer. I think that’s really interesting and fun,” Jones, a junior media and professional communications major, said.

Moss said she hopes students take up this opportunity to have fun while sheltering in place.

“I hope we have a good turnout. I hope students recognize that this is a really fun and safe way for students to interact with each other. Especially now that we’re in a shelter-in-place situation on campus, this is a really good way for students to still have some fun,” Moss said.