Dayglow to headline SpringFest 2025
The concert, organized by MIT’s Student Events Board, will be held on Saturday, May 3 at 6:30 p.m. on Briggs Field A
Photo Provided by MIT SEB
SpringFest’s 2025 headliner will be indie musician Dayglow. The concert, organized by MIT’s Student Events Board (SEB), will be held on Saturday, May 3 at 6:30 p.m. on Briggs Field A. Student bands The Deuce and Juno, as well as DJs Benjamin Ebanks ’25 and Isaac Villalobos ’25, will open the concert. Along with these performances, SEB will hold a carnival on Kresge Oval from 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday, May 2.
After founding the solo project Dayglow in 2017, frontman Sloan Struble has released four studio albums, most recently 2024’s eponymous Dayglow. Struble, whose upbeat but introspective style is featured in songs like “Can I Call You Tonight” and “Hot Rod,” is no stranger to college festivals. He performed at Yale’s Spring Fling in April 2024 and at Georgetown’s Spring Concert earlier this month.
In a statement to The Tech, SEB Co-President Olivia Beniston ’25 wrote that the club first worked with a booking company to find a list of artists available in the spring who met their budget, then used results from a student survey to narrow down options based on genre. SEB also used a tool based on Spotify’s API that was created by a previous SEB president to track artists’ popularity during the fall and early spring months.
Citing 2023 SpringFest headliner Doechii, who recently won a Grammy Award in 2025, Beniston said, “If we can’t get someone famous, we can hopefully get someone who will be famous.” Finally, the club tried to take qualitative information into account, such as comments from students or performance videos. “We want to see active crowd work and energy in the artist we choose,” Beniston said.
SEB began planning for SpringFest in the fall semester, creating a top-five artist list to inform an offer to their management agency. SEB aims to establish an offer by January, then finalize the contract before spring break, after which they can announce the artist. The organization works with different groups at MIT and elsewhere to coordinate food, safety, activities, and marketing.
According to Beniston, over 95% of SEB’s budget is dedicated to the SpringFest concert and carnival. Expenses include artist and production costs for the concert, as well as food, inflatables, entertainment, and amenities for student groups at the carnival. Beniston emphasized that SpringFest allows students to see artists at a significantly reduced cost compared to normal concert ticket prices.
This year, Beniston and co-president Wilhem Hector ’25 are especially excited to include inflatables and a petting zoo at the carnival. The concert will feature the “Dam,” an arch structure through which students can enter. SEB will also give out glow sticks and light-up beach balls at the concert. Hector wrote, “Nothing at MIT brings over 1600+ community members and students together for a fun time. SpringFest is a unique tradition that should be a part of everybody's MIT journey.”
The Tech solicited the student body for feedback on SEB’s choice of Dayglow for the concert.
“I’m so excited that Dayglow is headlining! I actually went to his concert three years ago,” Ruth Shiferaw ’25 wrote. “ I’m a little worried he’s not hype enough for SpringFest, considering we’ve had artists like Doechii in the past, but I’m personally very happy.”
The carnival portion is free for all MIT students. Early bird tickets for the concert will be available for MIT students for $5 at mit.universitytickets.com until May 1, at which point general admission tickets will become available.