Lupe Fiasco will headline this year’s SpringFest concert
Boston-based band, Bad Rabbits, to open for the concert on April 25
This year’s SpringFest headliner will be hip hop artist Lupe Fiasco, accompanied by opener Bad Rabbits, a Boston-based funk rock and R&B band.
The UA Events Committee is spending $130,000 on the concert, backed by the SAO, with $75,000 going to Lupe Fiasco. The concert is on Saturday, April 25, from 9 to 11 p.m. in the Johnson Ice Rink, and tickets will go on sale April 1 for $10 during the pre-sale period.
“I guess I’m okay with it,” Jitesh V. Maiyuran ’18 said of the choice of artist, “even though Lupe Fiasco wasn’t as big as he was years ago.”
Organizers Divya M. Shanmugam ’17 and Raichelle J. Aniceto ’16 tried to build up excitement for the artist reveal by sending out hints over Snapchat, which students accessed by taking pictures of QR codes placed on posters around campus. “I’ll go around campus and hear people say who they’ve narrowed it down to, or who they’re sure it is,” Shanmugam said. “It’s exciting to hear people talking about it.”
According to Shanmugam, one of the most popular questions they are asked is: “Why don’t we have an outdoor concert?”
“It’s been considered,” Shanmugam said, but “it would be pretty much impossible.” Shanmugam cited the costs associated with the security and production of such an event, in addition to noise considerations and Cambridge laws, as prohibitive.
“I would like to see SpringFest be a big deal on this campus,” said Shanmugam, “I’d like to make SpringFest just as an exciting event for people to go to [as Ring Premiere].”
Shanmugam said that they also had planned to turn this year’s SpringFest into a week-long series of campus-wide activities. An Undergraduate Association Council vote on Wednesday night rejected almost all the planned additions.
The rejected UA events committee proposal included events like a sushi night, a dessert night at Finale, and a burger night at establishments across Boston, alongside events run by other student groups such as the Fierce Forever drag show and the SaveTFP carnival.
The costs would have amounted to $20,000, with funding provided almost entirely by the UA.
“We have been struggling for funding,” Shanmugam said, “and it’s in our opinion that we can use this money effectively to create a really fun atmosphere on campus. Focusing more on weeklong events and focusing on the importance of SpringFest to the undergraduate community will do more in building our community.”