The long awaited lineup for this year’s Spring Party Weekend (SPW) was finally announced on Sunday, April 7. Members of the SPW committee were given the go-ahead to release a promotional video showcasing the music acts for the Palooza through Facebook statuses and emails to student groups. Pallooza is the new platform for the Saturday music performances of the weekend and will feature Giants of Science, Jesse Marco and Fareoh. The headlining act will be the Goo Goo Dolls on Friday night.

This announcement, which in previous years has come much earlier, was stalled due to a variety of factors.

“We cannot announce the contracts until all of the contracts insurance and artwork is signed off on by agents regarding the performers, and it was taking a while,” SPW Committee music co-chair junior Alex Fisch explained. “The video was approved and we were just waiting on artwork for Goo Goo Dolls, which is on its way from being approved. We just realized that it’s basically two weeks out and we wanted to get something out there, even though it wasn’t completed, we just got what we could out.”

In regards to the specific time and date of the release, the SPW Committee explained that it came as a reaction to some information leaking earlier that evening.

“The website accidently went live for a few minutes and some people found it, and so we figured that we’d rather announce it in an exciting way rather than people be confused about what was going on,” SPW Committee co-chair senior Charlotte Myers said in regards to the YouTube video’s Sunday night release. “So we chose to just do the official announcement and make everyone know who actually the artists are.”

Myers explained that the delay stemmed a great deal from the side of the musicians.

“The music industry just works on a different timeline than schools do,” Myers said. “We wanted to have this out a lot earlier. It’s also harder with the rise of [Electronic Dance Music]. EDM artists are notoriously difficult to peg down, especially because it’s the same weekend as Coachella [Music Festival], so there’s a lot of other stuff going on. A lot of times we’ll do something and send it out really fast, but then it will take 10 times the amount of time for artists or the school to approve it. So a lot of times it’s perceived that we’re the source of the delay, but it’s really not.”

Fisch echoed Myers’ comments, saying that factors out of their control held the committee back from making the formal announcement

“It was just regular delay from the industry,” Fisch said. “We were just waiting for some things to come through both on the school’s side and from the artist’s side.”

The process for reaching out to and signing the specific musicians for SPW revealed few differences this year from previous ones.

“I’ve been doing it for three years and it was basically the same as the past two years,” Fisch said. “It’s always been that we have a survey, we get the results student wide and we usually get the majority of the campus’ input. Then we go after the number one and number two until we can get an artist to sign. It is hard for us because we’re a school in the middle of nowhere. Since we are using student activities fees to sponsor the Budget Allocations Committee, it has to be open to the student body, and we have no say in what artist comes.”

Myers feels the Palooza, in addition to the main event on Friday night, will help to make this year’s SPW a success.

“I think it’s exciting because we’re covering all genres,” Myers said. “We have rock, we have EDM. It’s also going to be much more inclusive this year. Along with getting a lot more genres, we’re moving everything to a central location to try to get everyone together in one place hanging out together. So there will be a lot of food, a beer tent, it will just be a fun day. It’s going to be a nice mix. We’ve worked really hard and we’ve gotten frats on board and they’re excited too.”

The committee is positive about the new Palooza event on Saturday.

“I think it’s a really good format this year,” SPW Committee music co-chair sophomore Sarah Rende said. “I think that once everyone is there they’re going to end up loving it.” Myers pointed out how Greek organizations have gotten behind the new platform.

“We’ve been working with the fraternities on this,” Myers said. “We have weekly meetings with the presidents, treasurers and social chairs in every fraternity, and they are co-sponsoring the Saturday event, though they’re not responsible for the Friday event. They’re all excited about it, and we’re all excited about it. The Palooza is a move towards what a lot of students like, the whole music festival scene with multiple artists.”

When asked if the administration has had a more hands-on role in planning the events of SPW this year compared with years prior, the committee said that while they are trying to make it more cohesive for students, not much else has changed.

“It’s basically the same this year as with other years,” Fisch said. “They’re trying to get more of an inclusive weekend rather than how it was my freshman year, in which there was an individual concert at almost each fraternity, starting Thursday until Sunday. And the administration would like to move to a more neutral location with everybody involved in the planning rather than these scattered concerts, which, even if they’re open, it’s still limiting to people.”

To this effect, the school is implementing a new registration policy for non-Colgate guests of SPW.

“We have an admission policy which is for Colgate students and guests and the residents of Hamilton,” Fisch explained. “That’s basically from the BAC guidelines for using student activities fee. Students will be able to register up to two guests online.”

Reactions from Colgate students regarding the announcement of the musical acts to the new format of the weekend have varied.

“I’ll probably go to the main stuff but I’m not sure about the smaller ones,” sophomore Emma Krasovich said. “The standard from last year was set so high. Also, I feel like students here aren’t as interested in these kinds of performers.”

Some students have expressed feelings of indifference.

“I don’t really like the Palooza thing, but I think it will be fine,” sophomore Arman Tabatabai said. “I just think it’s sort of forced, restricting in terms of what you can do as opposed to people doing different things and going different places. I honestly don’t feel like people will let it affect the weekend. At the end of the day they don’t really care. I think people are making a big deal out of it now, but they’re just going to go out and do what they normally do that weekend.”