Springfest is an event that draws in the masses at St. Lawrence. Students even invite their friends from other schools to join in the day-long festivities of the event. It is something that everyone looks forward to because it signals the end of the school year and students get to vote on a famous artist to perform.
The idea of doing a joint concert with SUNY Canton was a plan for some time, combining budgets in order to get a bigger-named artist to perform, but this idea fell through. President of ACE Blair Champion stresses the difficulty of coordination with SUNY Canton to try and plan this event. “Unfortunately, our two schools’ concert planning processes had many differences that led to some difficulties,” he said. “As a result, we ultimately decided not to pursue the joint concert.”
Voting on an artist to come to Canton is thrilling because it gives some people an opportunity to see one of their favorite artists sing in person. Taking a survey of who the performer should be is the beginning of a long process to put Springfest together. The Association for Campus Entertainment (ACE), sends out multiple surveys in the beginning of March in order to narrow down the type of genre the school wants, and then to choose the artist.
Students are given a list of famous performers they can vote on, then have to wait until the week before Springfest to see who is actually performing. Concerts like Springfest also occur at other schools like Hobart William Smith Colleges, which have a similar voting process to pick an artist. Sam Edge ’22 at Hobart says, “An email was sent out to all of the students here with a ballot to pick artists. We voted on our top two and then just had to wait and see who the school booked to perform.”
Rumors begin to spread about the artist who is coming to SLU, weeks before the name is actually released, which causes chaos and confusion. Adeline Reale ’22 says, “About a month ago I heard that T-Pain was performing and then a couple weeks ago, heard he canceled.” This rumor ran wild at school and most of campus was convinced T-Pain was performing for Springfest.
Someone in ACE leaked that the school talked to T-Pain’s agency, which began the talk of him coming to SLU to perform. ACE Concert Chair Member Gabby Ahrens ’21 says “T-pain was never, and let me emphasis, never booked. He was already booked for the night before and was not able to make it to Canton, N.Y. from Seattle, Wash. by the time his sound check was and his act would have started,” she stated.
The information is supposed to stay confidential among the ACE members until the public release of the singer performing. Spring is a busy time of year for concerts and tours, so it is difficult to book someone. ACE reaches out to multiple artists to see who is in our budget, who is available for the date of Springfest, and then does reference checks to make sure that artist has given good performances and has not had any security concerns in the past. Ahrens says, “It is university policy to get two reference checks back before we send an offer to an artist.”
The real goal of Springfest is to put on a good show for St. Lawrence students and all others in attendance, so they can have a good time. Katie Parsons ’22 says, “For my first Spring Fest at SLU, I had a ton of fun. I think it was super well organized and the performers were great.”
This past Saturday was yet another successful Springfest put on by the university’s ACE members.