The return of the Student Programming Board (SPB) Spring Concert series was headlined by headliner Bryce Vine and opener Hoodie Allen on Prassel Lawn. On March 22, 330 students attended the event, fulfilling SPB’s mission of providing free entertainment to the student body after a more than two year hiatus of this event.
Doors opened at 6:00 p.m., giving students plenty of time for grabbing food and drinks and filing into Prassel Lawn. Despite this, initial turnout was minimal until the concert began. Some students even left after seeing the small number of students there.
Other students reveled in the chance for a free concert. Cameron Lilly, sophomore marketing and human communication double-major, was prepared for the event by 6:15, even creating a sign for the concert that read “Bryce, I made you a sign. You tryna hang after this?”
“I heard about this event through a flier in LeeRoy,” Lilly said. “When I saw it I went, ‘Yo, I know a Hoodie Allen song and I know a Bryce Vine song as well, so this has got to be a fun concert. How thoughtful of Trinity to put on this concert for free.’”
Hoodie Allen opened the night’s festivities, featuring a set list of hits such as “Cake Boy” and “No Interruption.” Throughout the show, Allen did more than just showcase his past hits, inviting his tour manager on stage to rap with him. The University of Pennsylvania alum even closed off his set by performing an original freestyle about Trinity University. While taking shots at the cooking quality of Mabee Dining Hall and the local fraternity Chi Delta Tau, the audience erupted during the tailored performance.
Bryce Vine followed Allen up and got the crowd singing along with his recent release “Saturday Night.” Vine used his water bottle to douse the front sections of the crowd and eventually jumped down to the crowd’s level, directly interacting with the audience. Throughout the show, Vine high-fived fans, including Lilly.
Dating back to mid-June, SPB had already picked Vine to headline the event, but they had yet to determine many logistical aspects. Simmi Chadha, the SPB staff advisor, came on in Sept. 2023 to facilitate the development of the concert’s planning. Helping coordinate the discussions with booking agency Degy Entertainment and adding Allen as an opening act were among the tasks Chadha and SPB took on to revive a Trinity tradition.
“Bringing back the concert after a hiatus of two and a half years was a momentous occasion, and we eagerly anticipate expanding upon this tradition in the future,” Chadra wrote in an email.
The concert was a combined effort of planning and logistics as Trinity University Police Department, paramedics, Trinity dining services and off-campus rentals were all present for the event. Thankfully, the paramedics had no patients throughout the concert.
With this concert under their belt, SPB now looks to the future of event planning for the student body. Future events include bringing students to Fiesta, a baseball tailgate and a pickleball tournament with the pickleball club. Nevertheless, the production effort that went into the Spring Concert has allowed for SPB to reflect on the success of the event. Seraphim Wright, sophomore accounting major and current recruitment coordinator chair for SPB, was able to reflect on the concert.
“I think the event went well,” Wright wrote in an email. “I had a lot of fun with my friends and I think that the artists did a great job of interacting with the crowd, which made the whole experience feel more exciting.”