Digital Diaries: Wildcats manifest their perfect Dillo Carnival

Valentina Valcarce, Assistant Audio Editor

May 15, 2025

The Daily Northwestern · Digital Diaries: Wildcats manifest their perfect Dillo Carnival

In this episode of Digital Diaries, The Daily talks with Dillo Day first-timers and veterans about what they’re hoping will happen — and won’t happen — at the music festival on Saturday. From surprise guest artists to dream moments, this episode dives into the energy building on campus.

ANDRÉ HIROKI: A very special moment, it would be seeing the sunset fall, having everyone cheering on the concert together. I feel that’s gonna be a very warm memory in my heart.

VALENTINA VALCARCE: That was Medill freshman André Hiroki picturing the day many Northwestern students are dreaming of: hanging out with his friends and listening to good music at Dillo Day.

[music]

VALENTINA VALCARCE: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Valentina Valcarce. This is Digital Diaries, a podcast capturing peoples’ lives in their own words.

Just days away from the 53rd Dillo Day, students across campus are imagining how they want the day to unfold — and what they’re hoping to avoid.

For Hiroki, who’s attending Dillo Day for the first time, it’s not just about the musical performances.

ANDRÉ HIROKI: I can already imagine walking around in the crowd and meeting many of my friends there, because everyone’s gonna be there.

Ever since I got into NU, everyone was hyping me (up) about Dillo Day.

VALENTINA VALCARCE: Weinberg freshman Lello Oljirra has felt a similar anticipation. From the very beginning, the idea of Dillo has been tied to Spring Quarter, and the excitement around the festival has been building for months, she said.

LELLO OLJIRRA: I think everyone, as soon as you get to campus, just talks about Dillo Day. Through the hard moments of Winter Quarter when it got super hard and cold and just difficult to trudge on, I just remembered May and Dillo Day.

VALENTINA VALCARCE: Students who have experienced Dillo before, like McCormick sophomore Stephi Lyou, look forward to seeing student’s embrace the theme, Lyou said.

STEPHI LYOU: I’m excited to see everyone’s outfits. I know someone who’s planning on wearing stilts and I don’t know how they’re gonna do that.

I’m just excited to see the variety and how creative people are gonna be.

VALENTINA VALCARCE: With this year’s headliners including Natasha Bedingfield and BigXthaPlug, some students are holding out dreams for surprise guests — some even from past editions of the festival.

ANDRÉ HIROKI: Having Kendrick Lamar as a surprise guest artist would be actually fire cause although he’s like very famous right now, he’s probably very expensive to be in Dillo Day. He’s definitely one of the best in his industry at the moment, and people would love him so much.

VALENTINA VALCARCE: Lamar was a Dillo performer in 2012.

Oljirra is hypothesising her surprise guest based on tour stops and timing.

LELLO OLJIRRA: Me and my friends have been talking about Central Cee and speculating that he would come as a surprise guest because he’s going to be in Chicago the night before for his own tour.

VALENTINA VALCARCE: But dreaming up the perfect Dillo Day also means thinking about what could go wrong and what Wildcats would rather avoid.

ANDRÉ HIROKI: I hope it doesn’t rain during Dillo Day because it would be actually very gross. But also, I always carry my digicam around for every event I go (to). In a crowd during a lot of confusion and movement, if it falls and breaks, it would be very sad, honestly.

VALENTINA VALCARCE: When asked to describe their ideal version of the day, each student had a different picture in mind.

LELLO OLJIRRA: My perfect Dillo Day would include energy, avoids crash outs and bad weather and then would end with good memories to keep me fulfilled until next time.

VALENTINA VALCARCE: For Hiroki, the perfect ending to Dillo Day echoes the chorus of “Unwritten,” one of Natasha Bedingfield’s most famous songs.

ANDRÉ HIROKI: My perfect Dillo Day includes amazing company, avoids — please avoids — the rain, but ends with feeling the rain on your skin.

[music]

VALENTINA VALCARCE: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Valentina Valcarce. Thanks for listening to another episode of Digital Diaries. This episode was reported and produced by Valentina Valcarce.

The Audio Editor is Isabella Jacob. The Multimedia Managing Editors are Anavi Prakash, Misha Manjuran Oberoi and Danny O’Grady. The Editor in Chief is Lily Ogburn.

Our theme music is “Falaal” by Blue Dot Sessions used under an Attribution 4.0 International License.

Email: [email protected]

X: valenpvalcarce