CAP board not discouraged by ‘Fling’ damage

By Ashley Weyler
April 21, 2005

Kristine Schmidt

On Saturday, April 16, the biggest and most anticipated event that the Campus Activities and Programming board (CAP) prepares for all year long, Spring Fling, took place with many new activities throughout the day.

To make this year the “best fling ever,” the CAP board hired the Bouncing Souls, a hardcore punk band, to play a 10 p.m. concert in the Dixon Center.

CAP prepared for this concert by putting together a detailed, operational manual and hired an outside security service. Bicycle racks served as barricades.

Amy Hecht, the assistant director of student activities and advisor of the CAP board, said that during the concert, the barricades were broken through and rubbed up against the floor of the gym and through the tarp that covered the floor. “It’s very minor. There were three very minor scratches. The CAP board made so much money off the concert; we can even pay for it. It’s really not a big deal at all,” she said.

Hecht said that some bands require stainless steel barricades that would not move; however, the Bouncing Souls did not request this. “Now in hindsight, we should have gotten that kind of barricade, but it was more expensive. We decided to go with the bike racks but they were pushing on it,” she said.

When Hecht realized there was a potential problem in the middle of the concert, it was decided to push the barricades against the stage and move the security to the sides of the stage. She said, “When I ran it by the tour manager and security, they said they were fine because there were only two more songs left at that point. There was some kind of miscommunication or they didn’t understand what I said, because they jumped on stage and the barricade split up onto the stage.” She said that if they had never done this, there would have been no damage, and it would have been perfect.

Kathy McCrea, the administrative coordinator of the Dixon Center, said that those involved with the Dixon center are not really worried about the damages to the gym floor. “We are not happy about it, but it is something that can be fixed,” she said. She also said that the Dixon Center would certainly allow for concerts such as the one held Saturday to happen again. She said, “Would I consider this minor? Absolutely.”

“The way they ran the show, it was like you going to the Tweeter Center and you are going to see a big, mainstream band. The Bouncing Souls have never been that type of band. They have always been an underground-type band,” Marty Shea, a freshman English and communication major, said. “At Bouncing Souls’ concerts, kids jump on stage, they stage-dive and all that stuff, and they expected this to be the regular Cabrini crowd,” Shea said.

CAP board had the capacity to sell 1,800 tickets. They set up a website, cabrinitickets.com, to sell tickets to not only Cabrini students, but also the general public. “We were never going to sell that many tickets if we didn’t open it up to the community. The crowd really was more outside people,” Hecht said.

“I consider it more CAP board getting in over their head. I think what they were expecting was a happy, fun, punk band, you know, a Simple Plan-type to come, do a show and a lot of the Cabrini audience to hang out and enjoy the music. The Bouncing Souls are a type of band that attract kids who regularly go to underground punk shows, who live and die with the music,” Shea said.

Hecht said that if the students aren’t interested in a carnival during the day, “then why should we spend the money on it?” The idea for the carnival during the day, the concert in the evening, and the breakfast until 3 a.m. was to minimize the drinking on campus during Spring Fling. “It’s hard to justify spending $8,000 to $10,000 more on a concert and letting everybody drink all day and be even more drunk for the concert,” Hecht said.

As for there being a concert next year, Hecht said that CAP board would definitely put one on again. She said, “For the first year doing a major concert, it was great.”

Posted to the web by Shawn Rice

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Ashley Weyler

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