Spring Fling to be insured against cancellation

Tufts will now purchase insurance against loss for its annual Spring Fling concert. The policy change comes after forfeiting tens of thousands of dollars when Tufts was forced to cancel the concert last year.

Concert Board and the Office of Student Activities decided jointly to cancel Spring Fling last April because of severe rain and wind conditions. Due to space constraints and agreements with Medford, the event could not be located indoors.

Tufts lost about $70,000 on the two scheduled acts, whose contracts required payment even in the event of a cancellation according to the Office of Student Activities (OSA). Headliner Busta Rhymes took $50,000 of that sum, and the rest covered supporting act Real Big Fish and agents' fees.

No insurance policy was taken out to protect against potential losses last year.

Concert Board declined several requests to comment on the losses of last year's Spring Fling. Jordan Kolasinski, co-chair of Concert Board, also declined to comment on the reasons for the cancellation.

"An insurance policy was never advised to us," OSA Assistant Director Ed Cabellon said. "Spring Fling has been going on for 35 years and it rained once. We didn't really think it would rain."

Although Cabellon estimates that by canceling Spring Fling the university saved between $5,000 and $8,000 on production expenses for extra police and cleanup, costs for scheduling talent and stage and fence setup were unrecoverable.

Cabellon did not give an exact figure for these unrecoverable costs, but they were significant. "Production alone can be close to our talent budget," Cabellon said. "Production expenses for a Spring Fling the size of last year's typically total $30,000 to $40,000," he said.

"We also weren't budgeted for an insurance policy," he said. After last year's losses, however, Cabellon said that the cost of an insurance policy was built into the budget.

The cost of Spring Fling comes from the $206 student activities fee that each student pays at the beginning of the year. The TCU Senate then disseminates the money to fund student groups. Spring Fling is the senate's largest allocation of funds.

The last time that the concert was rained out, it was moved into the Cousens Gym, but that facility is no longer capable of accommodating the larger student body. Now, the only facility that can hold the entire student body is the Gantcher Center which cannot be used for concerts.

Before Gantcher was built, Tufts made an agreement with the city of Medford explicitly promising that no concerts would be held at the new facility because of the noise that would leak out to neighboring residents.

For Fall Ball to be held at Gantcher, neighboring residents first agreed to the dance and then the city of Medford approved it, according to Cabellon.

"Fall Ball found a loophole in the agreement because they were not putting on a concert," said Cabellon. "That took a considerable amount of work from a number of people. To replicate those circumstances for the Spring Fling, since it is a true concert, would be very unlikely."

According to Cabellon, even if the city approved moving the concert to Gantcher, it would "almost double" production costs, and would make Spring Fling unfeasible because of budget constraints.

"We would have to set up soundproof draping and protect the flooring," he said. Setting up the sound, lights and stage in Gantcher would also be more difficult and more expensive. "I would love to see the concert in Gantcher, but knowing the administrative and political challenges, it is just too hard to do."

This year's Spring Fling, despite requests for more funding from Concert Board, will have a talent budget of $64,500, which is close to last year's. Production costs bring the total expenses, before about $10,000 in ticket sales, to nearly $101,000.

Spring Fling is a long-standing and well-attended tradition. According to OSA estimates, nearly all undergraduates attend the concert.