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NLE Choppa cancelled two weeks before Springfest 2025. As a result, The Association for Campus Entertainment (ACE) came to the decision to replace him with A$AP Ferg. This posed a major challenge for ACE, given the months of planning that go into preparing for Springfest.
The news of NLE Choppa’s cancellation due to extreme exhaustion and dehydration reached ACE on April 1, causing Concert Co-Chair Poppy Hanson ’25 to believe it was an April Fool’s joke. “Getting a text that says, ‘SOS come to the office ASAP,’ I’m like, okay, this is a joke,” Hanson said. However, the issue was solved by ACE members within the same day. “It was, like, a two-hour turnover rate to find out that he canceled, get a list, choose a new artist, and send out the contract,” Hanson said. “So yeah, the turnover was pretty fast.”
This adaptation was a feat given how much time goes into planning Harvest Fest and Springfest, according to the other Concert Co-Chair Lauryn Cruz ’27. “I was the only concert chair for first semester,” Cruz said. “If I had to say hours it took for everything, probably like 20 to 30.” When booking NLE Choppa, Cruz underwent an entire process. “I made a giant spreadsheet of all the potential artists that I thought could be good and sent that list to our middleman, Brett, and had Brett send his list back,” she described. “It took a pretty long time.”
There are many logistics that must be coordinated outside of the entertainment aspects of Springfest. The Assistant Vice President of Safety and Security at St. Lawrence University, Patrick Gagnon, describes the extra measures put in place to facilitate student safety. “I will have my SLU team there, plus some security officers from Goldstar Security, to help us out,” he said. According to Gagnon, “Goldstar is a contract security officer company that we have been using for five years or so at large events.”
The faculty also contribute a great deal to the operations of ACE and Springfest while balancing other campus activities. Interim Assistant Director of Campus Activities and advisor of ACE, Keely Towne, described the role she plays in getting the ideas for Springfest off the ground. “It’s like the nitty gritty of it all, that’s my role,” she said. “I kind of direct and make sure we are following policy at the same time and make sure it’s safe for students.”
Springfest is a beloved tradition at SLU, so the work put into it correlates with student support. According to Niche, a college profiling website, 29 percent of SLU student voters classify Springfest as their favorite campus event. With this, Springfest holds the highest percentage of votes, with other popular events such as Titus Weekend holding 14 percent of votes and Raft Day receiving 10 percent.
The outlook for Springfest is still strong, if not more so, with the changes that have been made. “I think it’s going to be very high energy,” Cruz said, “I think Springfest is always fun; people make it fun.” Hanson also pointed out the benefits to replacing NLE Choppa with A$AP Ferg. “There are people I know who are even more excited for A$AP Ferg than NLE Choppa, because NLE is a newer artist,” she said.