By Anna Fahy
Spring Weekend is one of Fordham’s greatest traditions. Dating back to 1980, it’s a week-long programming fest hosted by Campus Activities Board that culminates in the Spring Weekend concert. I, along with my two co-concert chairs, Adeyinka Maddy and Gibson Borelli, are so lucky to be producing it this year.
Every year around this time, students ask, “How was this lineup chosen? Who is making these decisions? Why these artists?” I’m here, as one of this year’s concert producers, to answer all of your questions and give an exclusive look into what it’s really like to produce Spring Weekend.
Planning began over the summer. My co-chair, Adeyinka, and I began a rough brainstorming session with over 100 potential artists. We sent the list over to our agent, who reviews the lists and tells us what is in our price range and what is just too expensive that year. When we get onto campus in the Fall semester, we have a good idea of the range of popularity we can draw from for artists.
In early September, we released our annual Spring Weekend concert survey. In this survey, our goal is to figure out what students want in their Spring Weekend concert experience. We pushed the survey through CAB’s social media, tabling it in the McShane Center and individually sending it to literally every person on our contact list.
Through synthesizing these responses, Adeyinka and I realized what we needed to achieve with our concert. When we asked students about their favorite concert experiences, they mentioned how enthusiastic, engaging performers with lively, upbeat music made them enjoy the concerts, regardless of name recognition. They said they value performance quality and music style over celebrity, which was an essential part of our planning for this year’s Spring Weekend concert.
Most people want to know how the process of picking the artists goes. As well as taking suggestions from the survey, which amassed hundreds of responses, we have access to student Spotify account data affiliated with @fordham.edu emails. The artists that were suggested spanned from unattainable to incredibly underground indie artists. We found our headliner by creating a most-requested ranking. Our most-requested artist whom we could afford ended up being COIN, so we took a closer look at them.
We analyzed their past performances, live music style, engagement with Fordham Spotify accounts, and general student interest. Through this, we realized how Rams truly have the best music taste because it led us to our headliner.
COIN is the perfect headlining band for Spring Weekend. They have their hit songs “Talk Too Much” and “Crash My Car,” which everyone can sing along to, and their discography is upbeat, catchy, and true indie-pop. Their performance factor is what really sold us: they are a band that thrives off of their audience, and if our students somehow had a mosh-pit to Olivia O’Brien’s set, COIN would send them into orbit.
Once we decide to go through with a headliner, say, COIN, we immediately put together a proposal packet for the Fordham administration’s approval. Admin just needs to ensure the artist doesn’t have any major scandals (in 2019, CAB attempted to get Sean Kingston, but huge student protests due to his past behavior forced CAB to pivot) and loosely upholds the Jesuit Catholic values that Fordham stands on. The fact that we are a Jesuit school creates tighter reins for artists to be approved. Any artists with problematic lyrics, tweets, or behavior will have a slim chance of being approved.
COIN was finally approved by the administration at the end of the fall semester. From there, we offer a bid ($$$) to the artist to try to book them for our concert. We got caught in a bidding war for the band against another college, but we won, and COIN was officially locked in before the new year.
In choosing an opener for COIN, we decided to go a different route than the previous year and choose an opener whose genre and style differed from the headliner. We wanted to hit a different audience with the opener than the headliner to interest as many students as possible. We landed on the rap/R&B target by returning to the student interest survey.
In searching for rap/R&B artists, Cochise was thrown into the mix because he was also an affordable artist many students had requested, and his performance style stood out. I happened upon Cochise’s 2021 Lollapalooza performance and immediately knew his energy, enthusiasm, and chaotic performing style would complement COIN in a lineup.
Even though the most visible part of our job is picking the set, there’s tons of behind-the-scenes work. Our committee is also responsible for managing and booking tenting, catering, barricades, sound systems, porta-potties, creating green rooms, headsets for staff, public safety, FUEMS, and more. We work closely with the Office for Student Involvement to create the event, and we are very thankful for their support and work with us on these logistics.
Closer to the concert date, as I’m writing this in early April, we are finalizing our promotional material. We’re releasing a hint as a secret word search and, two days later, releasing the lineup as a hype video made by Adeyinka. No matter what the lineup is, people will always have something to say about it, but we think this year we created a set to satisfy every music lover’s taste.
Students will flock to Martyr’s Lawn on April 29th to find a concert carefully curated through hours of research and performance analysis. These artists are going to give students an experience they’ll never forget. Spring Weekend is a venerated Fordham tradition, and I’m extremely proud of the concert my co-chairs, Adeyinka and Gibson. I, along with our team at OSI, have collaborated to create.
