With a crowd of over 2,000 attendees, seven artists, seven market vendors, four food trucks and six hours of live music, BYX’s 2026 Island Party was in full effect.

On March 27, the Texas A&M Brother Under Christ Fraternity, also known as their greek letters Beta Upsilon Chi, BYX, hosted their annual philanthropic music festival in Bryan-College Station at Wolf Pen Creek Park Amphitheater. 

Starting in 1985, Island Party became a BYX tradition where it would celebrate brotherhood and the gospel by putting on an outdoor music festival to unite the community and raise money for their cause. However, since 1994, Island Party has served to support The Bridge Ministries’ food pantry as their philanthropy through its annual music festival. 

“We partner with them through service every year, every member is required to serve there at least one time each semester, and then we put on this benefit,” BYX Internal Vice President and finance junior Max Naukam said. “With it, we’re looking to make new investments into getting bigger spaces, more fridges to hold more things because 1-in-5 in Bryan-College Station area go to bed hungry, and The Bridge does an incredible job with trying to help with that.”

BYX is a National Christian Fraternity that exists to establish brotherhood and unity based on the common bond of Jesus Christ through the avenue of a social fraternity. The first BYX Island Party in 1985 was to formally announce the fraternity’s emphasis on bonding, eventually building it to what it is today. 

“It’s a great organization, a really close, connected group of Christian men,” BYX member and financial planning junior James Cox said. “We work really hard to put on Island Party, and it’s been an amazing journey to just follow Christ in the hard moments and being able to work together and bring out this event to share the gospel with the community of Bryan-College Station.”

With headliner Chris Renzema, along with Bolton Avenue, Fencetrees, Aiden Ross, Mike Duhaime, Beach Chapel and Luke Rob from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m., the lawn was packed with blankets, food, drinks and merch as the crowd enjoyed six hours of live music and friends; such attendees included Audrey Holts and Taylor Gonzalez who traveled from Magnolia to enjoy the event.

“We got here pretty early, maybe 4 [o’clock], hung around and got some tacos that were really good, free Red Bull, I had a lot of fun,” Holts said. “This isn’t my first time seeing them, but it was amazing because of the crowd and the atmosphere that was really nice.”

Having been previous years and being over an hour away from the venue, is a testament to the events growth and outreach, according to Holts. For a first-timer and having stayed the near full six hours of the festival, Gonzalez said she had nothing but praise for the experience. 

“It was so much fun; it was my first time being in this kind of environment and it was great,” Gonzalez said. “Everybody was super nice, the food was good, and the performers were great.”

With the goal of uniting the community and raising money and awareness for their philanthropy and beliefs, the outcome speaks for itself, according to Gonzalez. Through social media, predominantly Instagram, BYX hosts an account for Island Party separately to bring sole focus to the festival and its purpose alone, with daily posts and artist highlights as the event approaches. It’s through tickets, food trucks and vendors that BYX can raise funds for their philanthropy. 

According to Naukam, the planning for Island Party begins soon after the wrap up of the festival the year before, with around 30 members from the chapter that are responsible for planning, from the artists, to food trucks and vendors, making Island Party what it is each year.

“We’re a Christian fraternity, which kind of sounds contradictory, obviously, ” Naukam said. “ … But we have twisted the cultural norm of a fraternity and turned it into a brotherhood of guys that support, love and care for each other, who are on missions to serve the Lord, to love people well and to care for people — so, yeah, fraternity and Christian usually don’t go together, but we make it work by allowing ourselves to align with Jesus in everything we do.”