New England School Of Communications' OVERDRIVE Will Benefit The Bangor Area Homeless Shelter

On Friday, February 6, 2021, the students of the New England School of Communications presented "OVERDRIVE: Full Saturation Benefit Show," a curriculum-focused concert event.

This live-streamed music festival was a student-led collaborative effort involving students and faculty from every major offered at Husson University's New England School of Communications. This included students enrolled in the live sound production, video/film production, entertainment production, marketing communications, journalism, graphic/visual design and audio engineering programs. Two of the key faculty members involved with supporting the students were NESCom Assistant Professor Eric Ferguson and the program coordinator for the entertainment production program, Instructor Ken Stack.

The concert event was live-streamed from Husson's Gracie Theatre and featured popular musical artists from the Bangor area. Half of the performers were Husson students or staff. Talented musicians affiliated with Husson University who performed at the festival included Nate Ellsworth, Mikey B, and the musical groups "D.W.D." and "Spaced."

The other half of the performers included the bands "Otis" and "Midnight Breakfast." Musical styles varied from group to group. Jazz, punk, rock, and rap were just a few of the musical styles the audience had the opportunity to enjoy during the event.

"OVERDRIVE was the greatest experiential learning opportunity of my life," said Husson senior and concert event producer Nicole Majewski. "The whole experience helped me figure out my passions and my career niche. This project also helped to grow my skills as a producer. Because of this experience I'm now better at communicating and delegating tasks to individual departments working toward a common goal."

Historically, OVERDRIVE has been presented in front of a live audience at the Gracie Theatre. In an effort to protect the community and comply with all federal, state and university healthcare protocols during the pandemic; this year's musical festival was broadcast over YouTube Live.

The ability to livestream the event allowed the performances to have an impact beyond the Greater Bangor area since it gave parents and friends of the performers, who live out of state, the opportunity to view the concert event from their homes. The live-stream also featured live interviews with the performers between segments. In addition to giving the live-stream audience an opportunity to meet the bands and hear their stories, these interview segments provided students working the show with the time they needed to prepare for the next act.

NESCom graduate Dan Paschke created OVERDRIVE while he was a student at Husson University. His vision was that OVERDRIVE would inspire students to work outside of their specific curriculums and gain hands-on experience as part of a professional-grade concert event.

A unique part of the 2021 OVERDRIVE event was the establishment of a GoFundMe page created by Nicole Majewski and her peers. This page is designed to help raise funds for the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter. "We wanted to do something to help others in need by putting the 'fun' in fundraising, during this difficult time," says Majewski. Thirty donors contributed $2,000.00, exceeding the students' goal by $500.

Anyone interested in contributing to the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter should visit the GoFundMe page and the Facebook Event Page online. Here are the links to these webpages: https://gofundme.com/f/overdrive-full-saturation-benefit-show and https://www.facebook.com/Overdrive.full.saturation2021.

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