Thousands of new and returning ISU students will be welcomed to campus this week through Welcome Week. This year, Welcome Week offers students a different activity every day, Monday Aug. 26 through Friday Aug. 30. Each activity will take place somewhere in the Memorial Union.

“This week is probably the biggest first week of classes we’ve ever done,” said Mitchell KenneCQ, National Events Director for the Student Union Board(SUB).

Welcome Week includes a brand new event, the Welcome Week Concert featuring Chance the Rapper with Special Guests Skoold. This performance, to be held in the Great Hall of the MU, is the first in a new concert series SUB is trying out.

“We’re doing a … different model this year, doing a bunch of smaller concerts rather than just one big one like we’ve done in the past with Passion Pit or Brantley GilbertCQ,” said Kenne.

The Welcome Week Concert is the first of three smaller concerts SUB has announced for this semester. Later concerts will feature Kacey Musgraves and Fitz and the Tantrums, but this week’s concert includes headliner Chance the Rapper, a Chicago-based hip-hop artist.

Chance is known for his 2013 mixtape “Acid Rap” and  2011 mixtape “10 Days,” which has been downloaded over 50,000 times and was featured in Forbes magazine’s “Cheap Tunes” column.

Chance toured as an opener for Mac Miller’s “The Space Migration Tour” and will soon join Macklemore & Ryan Lewis as an opener for part of their 2013 World Tour. He is currently performing in Europe and could not be reached for a comment.

“Chance, he’s really up-and-coming right now. He’s expected to be pretty huge come spring,” Kenne said. Tickets for this concert are $10 for ISU students with ID and $15 for the general public. Kenne emphasized that now is a good time to see Chance at a low price before he begins playing bigger spaces and commanding more money per ticket.

Ben HagartyCQ, an MC from Skoold Life, the group opening for Chance this Thursday, also views this concert as a great opportunity for ISU students.

“Chance the Rapper, if people don’t know who he is, they need to look him up on YouTube asap and make sure they get that ticket,” said Hagarty. “If anyone has any sense of hip-hop love and they want to experience something new, they need to be there.”

Skoold Life is a hip-hop collective based out of Cedar Falls. They performed at the Music Showcase Extravaganza during the 2013 Veishea celebration at Iowa State.

 “I’d probably say they’re one of the bigger hip-hop groups in Iowa right now,” Kenne said.

Hagarty describes his group as musicians with a mission.

“Skoold is a collective of good friends that are basically making music to try to inspire people,” Hagarty said.

According to Hagarty, Skoold Life is also very excited to perform with Chance the Rapper.

“Chance … is an influence of ours, an up-and-coming rapper who’s just killing it right now,” Hagarty said. “I think that it’s just going to be the loudest, most fun, energetic show of the year.”

The Welcome Week Concert starts at 8 p.m. on Thursday. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets are available at Midwestix.com with a 3% MidwesTIX fee applied to all online purchases. Tickets can also be purchased at the M-Shop Box Office in person or by phone (515-294-8349), weekdays between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. A $1 per-ticket service fee is applied to all tickets ordered by phone, and all tickets are subject to an additional $2 MidwesTIX service fee.