Building community and excitement with Sled Island’s Student Mixer
By Ansharah Shakil, April 24 2025—
Sled Island is a festival tailor-made for anyone who loves music. This year it will be taking place from June 18-22. One of the many things that makes Sled Island unique is the special programming it offers, including the upcoming Sled Island Student Mixer, a free event held at BLOX Arts Centre from 7-11pm on April 26.
Festival manager Hemen Tor-Agbidye shared what students can expect from the mixer, which will provide ways for students to make new friends and find out more about the festival prior to June.
“The mixer will be a great opportunity for students to meet like-minded folks who attend the festival,” Tor-Agbidye said.
In addition to the free food and the people, the mixer will feature secret shows from artists in the festival’s 2025 lineup.
“They’re three really great local acts who range in experience from younger but still played a lot of shows, to some more really experienced artists who are touring the country and getting to represent Calgary,” he said.
As a musician himself, Tor-Agbidye is a hip-hop artist who goes by the name of The Blue.
“I love how you can express yourself through [music], I love how you can understand other people through it,” he said. “[As] a hip-hop artist, there’s an emphasis on the words and what you’re saying, which is key, which is great, and you can tell stories and people can feel your emotions through that, but on the flip side, there are a lot of bands that are instrumental only, and you can still feel those same emotions through their playing and also overlooked.”
Tor-Agbidye stressed the importance of Sled Island’s status as a discovery festival, giving opportunities to emerging acts.
“[Because] it’s a discovery festival […] you will not know most of the artists. I’ll be honest, I don’t know most of the artists. I know a lot of them, obviously, but before we booked them, there’s so many that I’m discovering,” he said. “You’re supposed to go out and find your new favourite artist.”
As an attendee, Tor-Agbidye would see artists he didn’t know in the festival schedule, check them out and end up loving them.
“You can find artists before their big jump,” he said. “For example [in] 2019, Jack Harlow played the festival before he was the Jack Harlow we know today, and it was literally later that year that he released “Whats Poppin” and blew up.”
He compared it to discovering new music on streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music or social media like Instagram and TikTok.
“Sled Island is just bringing different tiers, different classes of like, top talent from around the continent and the world, so I think that’s a really important aspect so we can broaden our listening,” he added.
Tor-Agbidye’s first experience with the festival was in 2014, when he was in grade 12 and caught Shad’s headlining a pre-festival block party. The next year, he had the chance to play in the festival. Now, as festival manager, his favourite thing about Sled Island is the community and the discovery of emerging acts.
“The thing I enjoy the most [in this role] is giving opportunities to emerging acts, so opportunities that I’ve been able to receive in the past from Sled Island and other music festivals I’ve played,” he said. “Now I get to give that [back] to other people, to open for their favourite artist, to play on stages they wouldn’t normally.”
He highlighted a few of the artists from Sled Island’s varied and extensive lineup for this year, including underground hip hop legend Oddisee & Good Company, indie band TOPS, eclectic Japanese band Peelander-Z and punk Japanese four-piece Otoboke Beaver, who are the subject of much excitement this year.
“For our pass pickup, all artists and attendees pick up their passes from the same place, so bands that you might be really in love with, you can run across them or run into them picking your pass,” Tor-Agbidye added. “Sled doesn’t try to create these different levels of importance […] we’re all people, we’re all enjoyers of music and art.”
In addition to attending the student mixer as a way to get to know the festival or festival-goers if you haven’t been to the festival before, Tor-Agbidye recommends going to the online schedule on the Sled Island website, where you can customize your own specific schedule by filtering through genre.
“I just hope people keep an open mind. Take your friends out, have a good time,” he said. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint, so stay hydrated, take care of yourselves.”
Students can RSVP for the mixer in order to receive a free beer from Dandy and Eighty-Eight Brewing. Though catered specifically towards students, the mixer will be an all-ages event, open to everyone. More information can be found on the Sled Island website.