The Student Association, along with University and Events Center officials, should do everything in their power to keep the Spring Fling concert totally free.
With campus construction, Binghamton’s annual outdoor festival and concert is getting a change of scenery. The concert — traditionally held in front of Academic A — will be hosted in the Events Center, while the locations of the tables, food and other festivities have yet to be determined.
The concert’s move to the Events Center definitely takes some of the pizzazz out of the event.
For both safety and logistics reasons, the Events Center was the only option for the show’s relocation, according to the Catherine Cornell, Student Association vice president for programming. The building is far from ideal for the event, even if it is a necessary move.
Spring Fling is supposed to be outdoors, plain and simple. It’s supposed to be a celebration of long-awaited warm weather after a brutal Binghamton winter. Moving the most important part of the day indoors takes away from the appeal of the whole event. It also makes the concert itself practically indistinguishable from any other one at BU.
On top of that, events hosted in the building are usually coupled with a number of fees, which, as it currently stands, may result in admission charges for the normally free show.
Cornell told Pipe Dream that she is attempting to work out a way to avoid needing to charge students, while not breaking the SA’s piggy bank. We hope she succeeds. A ticketed show just wouldn’t be Spring Fling.
In terms of where the day-time activities should be set up, we hope the SA is able to secure the Events Center parking lot as a location, even if it would now just feel like a tailgate for the evening show.
The Events Center lot offers the most in the way of space and practicality. It’s secluded enough that it wouldn’t interfere with transportation in a major way — like the Visitor’s Paid Lot would — and the pavement should be easier to clean up than its grassy counterpart on the Peace Quad, even though both the latter options would offer more aesthetically.
Most of all, the place is huge. We wouldn’t have to worry about overcrowding for the concert, and clubs wouldn’t be breathing down each other’s necks when they table. Most of the festivities would fit down in the parking lot, so presumably, you wouldn’t have to travel too far to experience everything Spring Fling has to offer.
It’s unfortunate that the Spring Fling concert will be indoors, and the move will be added to the already-long list of things the never-ending construction has affected.
Spring Fling will certainly have a different feel this year — and depending on whether the SAPB is able to book anybody decent for the show and whether we have to pay to see it — it could take a nosedive for the worst.