Bye Gosh Fest has been held on the UW Oshkosh campus since 1979 and has provided students with an entertainment experience to end the semester. 

The headliners for this year’s Bye Gosh Fest are former Disney Channel stars Aly and AJ. Their opener is local band Mubus. 

The event, put on by the Reeve Union Board (RUB), has included a wide variety of artists over the years who students vote on in the semester, to perform in the Kolf Sports Center parking lot. 

RUB adviser Dylan Bram said in previous years Bye Gosh Fest has had artists such as Bob Dylan, Skillet, Michelle Branch and T-Pain.

“The overarching theme of the event is to celebrate the end of the year,” Bram said. “So even if you have not heard of the headliner or concerts don’t do a lot for you, we still hope that people come to celebrate.”

Bram attended Bye Gosh Fest during his time at UWO, and the event looked a lot different when Bram was in college, with a smaller-scale event taking place. 

“Back then, it was on a smaller scale and happened near Reeve and the NBC (Nelson, Breese and Clemans Halls) Village,” Bram said. “The music, which I believe was Nappy Roots at my first Bye Gosh Fest, played on a small riser stage on the Reeve Marketplace patio.”

Bram said when he attended he felt the impact of the event was a way to show care for the students. 

“The main impact I felt was celebratory and a sense that UW Oshkosh really wanted their students to know how much they were appreciated,” Bram said. 

Bram hopes this event has the same impact on students today.

“I hope to this day that students come to this event and feel a sense of accomplishment that they made it to this moment,” Bram said. “A beginning celebration before summer, graduation or whatever the future has in store for them.”

The event this year has a few new elements, Bram said. 

“All of us on RUB would like to highlight a couple new elements this year, including six food trucks and a street magician,” he said. 

The event is mainly planned by students on the RUB executive board such as Casie Frentzel, the RUB live music chair. 

“Planning Bye Gosh Fest is not easy work,” she said. “There is a lot of coordination involving the headliner, the openers, production companies and collaboration with other team members.”

This is Frentzel’s first time planning the event and second time attending.

“Last year, I was not on the executive board yet, but I was being trained by Emma, our current president, and live music chair at that time,” Frentzel said. “I had not seen a Bye Gosh Fest in person until last year, so it was a completely new experience for me.”

Frentzel said that the impact of the festival on her is how it showcases the hard work of the RUB executive board. 

“I think it’s a representation of our student organization for a closing event at the end of the year,” Frentzel said. “There are components of all of our chairpersons that day.”

The aspects of different chairs are represented all throughout the festival.”

“We have bucket hats from our crafty adventures chair, a wandering magician from our entertainment chair and from our special events chair, we have inflatables, novelties and more,” Frentzel said. 

Frentzel said as a whole, the impact for students is the fact that this is a student-led event. 

“For the student body, I think that the impact is that a student organization can put this on,” Frentzel said. “It’s a great [representation] of what we can do as students for students.”

The event is a celebration of the year and a way for students to enjoy themselves, Frentzel said.

“It’s a way to celebrate with campus that the school year is coming to a close,” she said. “We put a lot of work into this day and seeing lots of people show up and enjoy themselves makes it worth it.”