Only minutes after doors opened for Art Attack XXVI on Friday, Ludacris’ hit “Move Bitch” began to play over the speakers. The crowd, still in the process of filing into Byrd Stadium, let out an excited cheer as a few began to dance along with the song.

And that was more than two hours before the artist himself took the stage. When he performed the song in person, the response was thunderous.

In Student Entertainment Events’ annual Art Attack show, Ludacris performed many of his more popular hit songs for an audience of more than 6,500 people, including “Move Bitch,” “Area Codes,” “Stand Up” and “Number One Spot.” The show also featured three opening acts, including Pigeons Playing Ping Pong – a local band of students from the university that won a battle of the bands to gain a spot at the show.

Ludacris’ performance, with its slant toward his more popular songs, was wide-reaching enough to entice most audience members, even those who weren’t big fans of the Illinois-born rapper.

“It’s not my type of music, but I still enjoyed it,” sophomore microbiology and psychology major Juliane Birke said.

Although excitement ramped up early with a few pre-show songs played over the sound system, the crowd cooled off during the opening acts of Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, Virginia Coalition and The Dance Party. Most of the disinterest toward the opening bands seemed to be due to their relative anonymity compared to the headliner.

“I don’t even know who they are,” freshman communication and criminology and criminal justice major LaToshia Butler said. “All I know is Ludacris.”

Although some students only attended to see Ludacris, others said having a variety of acts was important.

“I don’t know them either, but it’s probably good to have a little bit of everything,” freshman criminology and criminal justice major LaVonne Whitehead said. “We’re a big, diverse school, so we need to have a diversity of activities.”

Pigeons Playing Ping Pong kicked off the show with a short set of what the band describes as “fun, funky jazz rock.” They were followed by Virginia Coalition, hailing from Alexandria, Va., which covered Bill Withers’ classic “Lean on Me,” prompting the audience to join in.

The final supporting act, The Dance Party, came out in a blaze of power chords, raw energy and catchy synthesizer lines.

“They lived up to their name,” sophomore hearing and speech sciences major Sara Edelberg said.

The crowd seemed only moderately enthused until The Dance Party’s frontman, Mick Coogan, shouted “Luda!” as the band’s set came to an end. The resulting cheers were the loudest of the night thus far.

By the time M.I.A.’s popular single “Paper Planes” played on the speakers a few minutes later, the entire crowd was on its feet.

According to an e-mail from Jessie Thompson, the SEE’s concert director, a total of 7,007 tickets were sold. Although no official head count was taken, she said SEE “can confidently say we had at least 6,500 people there,” which trumps last year’s estimated attendance by more than 2,000 people.

Much of the large crowd was confined to the bleachers, to the chagrin of students. Except for the first 1,000 people in line, who received an orange wristband granting them entrance to the field, ticket holders were required to watch the show from the Byrd seats. Disgruntled audience members traded words with security, who wouldn’t let them pass.

One student tried to pass off an unrelated orange wristband as the show-sanctioned one. He was sent back to the stands.

Barely 10 minutes before Ludacris took the stage, another student leaped over the bleachers’ barrier, hopped a metal gate, and tore off down the field section, pursued by security and police. The bleacher-bound audience cheered him on.

Minus the tightly packed cluster of students pressed up against the stage, the wristband-required section boasted a rather large amount of unused real estate.

“You have to restrict certain areas of the show,” said freshman civil engineering major Marcello Arroio citing audience safety as a fair reason for security regulations. He did not receive a wristband.

“I enjoyed the show from my standpoint,” Arroio added.

But those problems were forgotten when Ludacris began. Aside from his own strong performance, he welcomed a few other MCs to the stage, notably Shawnna – with whom he is releasing a collaborative album this summer – whose machine gun-fire rap prompted boisterous cheers from the audience.

Ludacris seemed just as excited as the audience throughout his performance and stayed for a few songs after the set’s time limit apparently expired, letting the crowd know he would perform until he was kicked off stage.

After he ended his set, the rapper quickly took to his Twitter account.

“Just got off stage in College Park, Maryland,” he wrote. “Once again a great show. We do mo shows than Oprah!”

jwolper@umd.edu