Spring Weekend Concert Diverts Money to Spectacle

TRIP SLAYMAKER ’18
A&E EDITOR
Griffin Hunt ’17 has been working on a project since June. He and dozens of other committed students have been calculating budgets, contacting managers and working to make this year’s Spring Weekend one for the ages. As the Vice President of the Student Government Association, it is Hunt’s responsibility to be the president of Barnyard. The process by which the SGA members are elected recently changed from a school-wide election to an internal one, making Hunt the first to be chosen based solely on the confidence of his Barnyard and SGA peers. The position is extremely involved: Hunt’s team has spent enormous amounts of energy planning events like Trintoberfest and Trinalina, and even conceiving new ones like the Roller Disco.
“Oftentimes you have a weird Idea in a meeting, and just work to make it happen.” The event that requires the most attention, though, is unmistakably the Spring Weekend concert.
“We’re all very aware of last spring weekend.” Hunt refers to the controversial selection and subsequent rejection of Action Bronson.
“We looked at this Spring Weekend as an opportunity to restructure.” Griffin was abroad during that debacle but watched the Bronson decision live streamed from the Washington room.
“Because there were clearly issues last year, we have a free license to re-imagine what the concert means. There was much greater thought The opportunities for change were easier to justify and it was easier to get people on board with those changes. Barnyard has tried to ‘throw out the playbook’ this year.”
One of those changes is the role of the administration in organizing Spring Weekend. By working closely with administrative liaison Sarah Lucas, Hunt has taken steps to make the planning process a more cooperative project between students and administrators.
“I think one thing that is going to be really different this year is where we prioritize our money.” Between the two major Spring Weekend events, the carnival and the concert, there has been a great disparity of interest among students. “We wanted it to be spring week- END; programming that is on the same caliber both days.” Eventually, Barnyard decided that moving the concert to Friday (before the Saturday carnival) not only opened up Saturday to work with, but would also help eliminate a vacuum of time that is difficult to make entertaining and can promote unsafe drinking.
“We got a strong push from the administration on that.” The greatest changes will be in the concert itself, though.
“We’ve always allocated at least 80 percent of our budget for the concert on the talent, like Kygo and Snoop Dogg. That’s an important thing to Trinity Students… They want that name recognition to get their friends to come up, and for marketing material. That’s just the reality.” Hunt is confident that Louis the Child meets those requirements, and was instrumental in choosing the duo.
“It’s one thing to pick an EDM artist out of a hat, but we wanted a sound that was coherent and tangential to hip-hop, which is the other most popularly identified genre in our all-school survey. These guys are at the top of their game, and they’re the paragon of their sub-genre.”
“But at the same time, we’ve noticed that in the past, the production power, the oomph of the concert just wasn’t there.” Hunt goes on to describe the innovative and flashy surprises that will be used throughout the upcoming Louis the Child concert.
“Instead of doing 80 percent to the talent, we’re doing 50/50, if not a little more to the production side.” This means that “Louis” will be accompanied by some truly spectacular visuals and dazzling special effects. Barnyard members have even been working with Hartford officials to determine the safety of some cutting-edge pyrotechnic elements of the show. With the help of GrooveBoston, a company dedicated to making good parties into great parties, the show will certainly stand out among the history of the event. As if to emphasize this point, this will be the biggest stage ever used for a Spring Weekend concert at Trinity: obstacles, even a boulder will be relocated to allow for the massive structure to have access to the LSC quad.