This year’s newly-named PikeFest brought a “cool” front to campus last Saturday, with performances from The Cool Kids, Bad Rabbits and Chiddy Bang.

“This year was the largest turnout we’ve ever had, probably a few thousand,” said Pi Kappa Alpha President Bryce Wager, a junior finance and accounting major. “The success had a lot to do with all the planning that went into it during the summer.”

The event, held Sept. 11, was co-sponsored by Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity, the Resident Student Association, the Northeastern University Marketing Association and Colleges Against Cancer.

Kyle Knieste, a junior criminal justice major and member of Pi Kappa Alpha, co-headed the committee that organized PikeFest. One of the main goals of the concert was to reach out to freshman and the greater student population, he said.

Dani Wojdyla, a sophomore finance and accounting major, said she has never attended PikeFest before this year, but was happy that students from all different interests chose to attend.

“It’s nice that it wasn’t just a Greek event,” she said. The event offered students the opportunity to learn more about various Greek organizations, as well as different groups on campus.

Colleges for a Cure, for example, talked to students about Relay For Life and invited students to sign up to help this year.

The Resident Student Association helped by cooking food for the thousands of students that attended.

Pi Kappa Alpha and the other sponsors hoped to get students more involved on campus, said Knieste. “We just wanted to get them out there and enjoying the day.”

Wojdyla said she thought the event was a success.

“It was the perfect way to kick off the new school year,” she said. “It showcased the active enthusiasm and involvement of the [fraternity and sorority life] community as well as Northeastern as a whole.”

The networking and free food helped draw people to Centennial Quad, but the music made the event a success.

“The food was really good, but the music really made PikeFest such a succes,” Wojdyla said.

The lineup for this year’s PikeFest was different than it has been in past years, comprised of more mainstream performers, Knieste said.

“This year, we wanted to switch it up,” said Knieste, whose main responsibility was finding and booking the artists. He decided to find artists in the hip-hop genre, rather than the rock bands Northeastern has seen the past few years.

“It really helped to have SGA and the other groups so involved,” said Wagner, who also credited Knieste’s music choice for making PikeFest such a hit.

In the future, Wagner said he hopes to have even more students attend.

“But this was the best one we’ve ever had,” he said.