Vintage Days Concerts

FRESNO STATE – The 51st Vintage Days is nearly upon us, meaning thousands of people will swarm Fresno State, looking to spend some cash on local businesses and have a blast while doing it. 

Last year, 50,000 people attended the event, according to Fresno State Magazine. 

Whether by sitting in the audience or just by perusing the parking lot, all of those 50,000 people heard performances from the concerts. 

Joshua Bravo, the Concert Coordinator for the Vintage Days Concert Committee, has been hard at work since the fall to dial in this year’s set list.

Among the laundry list of duties Bravo has, one of the biggest is to decide how long each band has on stage.

“With Vintage Days, it’s not like, you know, you go to a concert, and you have an opener, then you have the big act, and they can kind of take as long as they want; with us it’s down to the minute,” Bravo said. 

During each day of the festival, Bravo assists performers on and off stage alongside other crews like staff from the Vintage Days Concert Committee and technicians from the Satellite Student Union and the Resnick Student Union.

This year, there are 27 performances, which is 6 fewer than last year. This is likely because the concerts end at 6 p.m. this year instead of 10 p.m. like in years past.



A new cast of characters isn’t the only thing that’s new with this year’s show.



This year, the concert stage is closer to the majority of audience seating, which is underneath a large canopy. The above graphic is a rough diagram of the new stage location. 

Michael Bonner, the program production supervisor at the Satellite Student Union, is the staff advisor for the Vintage Days Concert Committee. 

Bonner said he expects the new stage location to direct sound into the RSU parking lot, which has the most foot traffic during Vintage Days.

Bonner is also in charge of set changes on concert stage; each one precisely choreographed to move each act on and off stage as quickly as possible.

Bonner has done this job for the last three Vintage Days festivals. He’s learned which types of performances work best for large events on campus. 

“We want to have variety at Vintage Days,” Bonner said. “We want to have talented performers at Vintage days. We also want to give opportunities to student performers that don’t always get that opportunity to perform — maybe they’re a new band.”

While the concerts are a large part of what makes Vintage Days special to the Fresno State community, they are just one piece of the puzzle.

“Look, Vintage Days is like the fair,” Bonner said. “It’s the biggest thing we do on campus. So if you don’t go, you’re missing out on the most obvious thing you can participate in. And one of them is on a school day. So, to me, unless you’re out of town or you’re ill, there’s kind of no reason to miss Vintage Days.”