Independent rapper Rickson Satiro, was one out of roughly eight acts showcased in the fourth annual Cerritos College Commercial Music Fair.

Burnight Center 31, better known as the black box theater, cleared of all it’s standard audience seating to allow for an industrial club ambience and adequate space for patrons to move around while they listened to acts perform on the amply-spaced stage.

Satiro, who was one of the first acts to perform, alongside fellow rappers David Broster and Harry Noel, who prefers to go by his stage name Young Establishment.

Satiro states his personal thought on his performance and venue, “Every performance, everyday is a blessing, but it could have been better, I mean I can always do better. It was cool, it was few people but I appreciate every single opportunity, whether it’s one person or a hundred thousand, it’s still a person, that’s how I look at it.”

The fair, taking place Thursday, June 22 10 am to 10 pm, provided an environment for students interested in the music industry to attend workshops, speak and network with various vendors about their products, and showcase the talents of some of the musically inclined students on campus.

Rudy Iniguez, president of the commercial music club and co-coordinator of the fair, described this year’s fair concept by stating, “this year we decided to go with a more trade show approach where we have workshops, vendors, presenters and we added our own touch by incorporating the concert showcasing our students.”

Workshops were held in Burnight Center 51 with guest speakers such as Bobby Owsinski, Lyre and Josh Spoon.

Iniguez went on to describe the benefit and value of attending the fair by stating, “Students can very much benefit from this, it is great for networking, creating their palette to see what kind of tools they’ll like to use in the music industry in the future, create good connections that way the potential for a job or someone that could help them later on in the future or great collaborations.”

Vendor demonstrations were held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. where vendors such as Yamaha showcased new products.

Demonstrations were followed by workshops which were given 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. workshops where in turn followed by a concert set to start at four pm in BC 31 in the black box theater.

The concert received a larger audience in contrast to the vendor demonstrations and workshops held earlier.

Some patrons, having even traveled to see the concert, such as music major and UCLA student Ross Mitchell.

Mitchell, who is friends with Out of Nowhere synthesizer player, Justin, states what he thought of their performance and the concert, “I think that’s really cool that college music programs are starting to support commercial music and all of that because they have been classical music focused for so long and so I think it’s cool that they are doing that too now.”

Commercial music is the biggest music in the world right now and they’re so many talented people in it and deserves just as much training as a classical program or something like that. I think it’s a good way to hear a bunch of musicians who are young and up-incoming I guess and get to hear fresh perspectives and all of that.”

I think it’s definitely great performance practice because there’s nothing that gets you good at performing other than performing a whole lot”

The concert also showcased the various genres and subcultures available in music such as pop, hip-hop, rock, electronic music, and heavy metal.

Lead guitarist and Cerritos College student for heavy-metal band, Fleet of Wolves, Logan Manser, explained how he felt about his set with his band, predominately comprised of Cerritos College students, “I felt a lot of good energy […] we were just yelling and full of life on stage.

“We’re at this point where we’re gonna grow more, and the college was a good way to test our abilities and where we are at, so I feel happy and content with that,” Manser finished.

According to Commercial Music Professor Andrew Maz, there are a few requirements in order to be showcased in the concert, “I don’t let just any band play; they [have to] meet certain standards and be able to play well […] They just send me demos and we talk about it and we try to see how it goes.”

The concert appeared to be well-received by performers and audience members, who enjoyed the venue but would have liked better sound and more audience members present.

Independent rapper Harry Noel, who prefers to go by his stage name Young Establishment was one of the performers who found issue with the sound quality, saying, “The only problem I had was the microphones. Me and my [collaborators] had some issues with the volume, and I felt like it could have been played a little bit louder, [like] beats and stuff that we provided, [but] other than that it was pretty cool.”

Iniguez has addressed the low attendance issue by explaining, “The turnout seems a little iffy, a mishap where our promotions manager unfortunately left us without notification so we were left in the dark. We had the unfortunate circumstance of promoting late so the turnout wasn’t as ideal as we like. We hope to correct it next year.”

Maz has also stated the reason for the fair being a summertime event, “We have always talked about [hosting the festival] in the spring semester at some point. The summer is easier just because it’s easier to get into the rooms and do things, but it’s hard to bring people into the campus in summer.”