ACE Springfest is coming April 20, and the club members hope to exceed the expectation of the students. “We promise to produce a high energy, spectacular and exciting concert to lay the foundation to a tradition of concerts,” said ACE Vice President Moemedi O. Rakhudu. The club members are currently keeping the artists’ identities enclosed and will reveal them two weeks prior to the concert.
Earlier in March, ACE hosted a third Battle of the Openers at Java in order to attract students’ attentions for the upcoming festival. ACE believes that having the event is a way of promoting inclusivity within the campus range.
“I feel like there are a significant [number] of talented students on this campus and they have every right to have some type of way to showcase their musical talents,” said concert-chair Kenyeri Xelhua. “I feel like this is one of the ways ACE has made the student body more inclusive to the organization of any concert.”
Furthermore, the club suggests that having student openers will attract the crowd before the big artists. “It creates more excitement for people to go to the show earlier on,” ACE President Blair Champion commented.
Furthermore, due to the big expectations from the students, the concert committee of ACE has been dealing with a lot of pressure. “I think from the outside the process seems really simple for a lot of people. But it was one of the most stressful things I have ever taken on,” said assistant concert-chair Tumo Koontse.
According to Tumo, the committee starts with on-going conversations with booking agents, ACE executive board, the student life department from local universities and student life from the university. “I think beyond our control is a better word. You tried by all means, but sometimes unexpected things from other parties will slow you down.”
According to Rakhudu, the club planned to create a joint concert with a local university, but it did not work out the way they wanted to, due to the disparity of musical taste.
He considered that the biggest shortfall of this year’s concert; however, he believes that the energy of the team is unchanged. “One of the best things is watching our team work hard together through the late hours and through all breaks to put this great show together.”
According to the Director of Student Life John Robert O’Connor, in the past, the university only has one big concert a year with a budget of roughly $160,000. While we are currently having concerts for both fall and spring, the budget remained the same. “It sort of trades off because there are all spins of conversation about whether we should go back to one really big concert and get some bigger name artists or a couple of medium name artists,” he commented.
“So that’s always been a debate that ACE has about what the student body really wants. I think right now the students are pretty happy with the concert experience, but that doesn’t mean that at [one] point there might not be a shift to the way we organize the concerts.”
Springfest will take place on April 20, and the names of the student openers and artists will be revealed in early April. The people behind the concert are working hard to bring one spectacular event to campus. It will start will pre-games in the morning, special events including inflatables and photo booths in the afternoon, concert at dusk and Java late at night.
No one seems to remember when Springfest first started to appear on the St. Lawrence University campus; however, this ACE-hosted event is slowly becoming a traditional festival for students to celebrate the awaited spring.