Springfest, Northeastern University’s annual weeklong celebration, culminated with an energetic concert from Carly Rae Jepsen and Aminé last weekend, but the party isn’t over quite yet.

Alex Bender, a Northeastern graduate, is keeping the good vibes going on Thursday with a Springfest concert in New York City spotlighting a lineup made up entirely of Northeastern alum performers. 

The concert, which will be held at the Market Hotel in Brooklyn, will feature performances from electro-pop duo Hey WOW, rapper LEEWAY and indie-pop artist Maya Lucia. The event starts at 7 p.m., and the first set kicks off at 7:30 p.m. There will be a $10 cover charge that includes a drink ticket and appetizers.

Bender says the idea behind this Springfest offshoot is to celebrate the strong and significant alumni community in New York City––there are more than 4,000 alumni in NYC––as well as the university’s artists.

“Through this, I think it really shined a light on the amount of artists we have, even if they didn’t study in [the College of Arts, Media and Design,]” Bender, who graduated in 2020 and now serves on the Young Alumni Advisory Board, says. “This is a very tangible way to appreciate that, create space for it and also just give people a chance to have a lot of fun.”

Bender has always had a knack for bringing people together, especially at Northeastern, where he received a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and a master’s degree in engineering management. As an orientation leader and residence assistant, Bender relished the opportunity to open the doors to new members of the Northeastern community.

He’s found it difficult to leave that community behind. In 2021, after working for a supersonic airliner designer in Denver and going on an 11-month road trip around the country, Bender moved to New York City to work for The Routing Co., a public transit software startup. It didn’t take long for him to realize how many Northeastern alums lived in his neighborhood in Bushwick, let alone the city in general.

He found the inspiration for his Springfest in New York City concept at a concert put on by a fellow Northeastern alum, Kabir Dugal, a member of the band Komodos. Bender had a great time, but he was also impressed by how the show brought people together.

“I wanted to do something that was mimicking that concert, that was very organic, that felt like it was coming from the performers and the alumni,” Bender says.

The process of putting together this concert has been like organizing a block party with some friends, Bender says. After getting the Office of Alumni Relations onboard last summer, Bender started contacting friends and, through word of mouth and close connections, was able to put together the lineup. 

Murray Sandmeyer, one half of the electro-pop duo Hey WOW and a close friend of Bender’s from their days as orientation leaders, says the event is a chance to celebrate Northeastern’s small but mighty music community. Sandmeyer was a member of the Northeastern University Songwriting Club, which most of the artists in the concert lineup belonged to at one point or another.

“I’ve been surprised by the amount of musical talent that I’ve known at Northeastern,” says Sandmeyer. “It’s meaningful for me to represent the talent we always had.”

Bender is hopeful that this week’s event will be a success based purely on the RSVP numbers so far. At first he was expecting, at most, 75 people to RSVP for the event, but the week before the event that number had climbed to 150.

“I did the first round of outreach among all my friends, and from there it’s just taken off,” Bender says. “So many people have RSVP’d who I’ve never heard of, which just makes me so happy. The word is definitely spreading naturally.”

Although Bender is focused on ensuring this week’s concert goes off flawlessly, he’s excited at the prospect of future arts-focused alumni events––and other alumni communities potentially making their own Springfests. If nothing else, Bender is happy the concert and the talent on display can show the Northeastern community the value of making space for creativity.

“Especially in some people’s crazy jobs doing engineering, investment banking, startups, whatever it may be, it’s so easy to get lost in the busyness and get overwhelmed,” Bender says. “Just seeing some of these performers either try to create art and not try to make a living off of it or try to make a living off of creating art is a really inspiring way to think about how to design a lifestyle.”

Cody Mello-Klein is a Northeastern Global News reporter. Email him at c.mello-klein@northeastern.edu. Follow him on Twitter @Proelectioneer.