Miranda Jeyaretnam, Contributing photographer

Spring Fling will move to College Street Music Hall due to weather concerns, organizers announced on Friday, slashing capacity and prohibiting guests.

Organizers had planned to throw the student-run music festival, which is slated to begin at 4 p.m. on Saturday, on Old Campus. Although it will now be held indoors, the lineup — including R&B artist Ravyn Lenae, French DJ Dombresky and rapper Pusha T, as well as student acts PJ Frantz, Tired of Tuesday and DJ Leon Thotsky — will remain unchanged.

On Friday morning, Dean of Student Affairs Melanie Boyd wrote in an email to students that the distribution of Spring Fling wristbands and the sale of merchandise would be put on hold until further notice. Three hours later, the Spring Fling Committee wrote to students that inclement weather conditions had forced the festival to relocate from Old Campus. High winds, heavy rain and temperatures around 50 F are currently forecasted for Saturday. 

“Given these conditions, we cannot proceed with Spring Fling as planned,” members of the Spring Fling Committee wrote in the email to students. “This isn’t a judgment call made by the Spring Fling Committee: these are non-negotiable regulations set by the stage production company and Yale Emergency Services.”

Dean of Student Affairs Melanie Boyd told the News that Yale’s Spring Fling operations team had been closely monitoring the weather forecast all week, and concluded when predictions worsened on Thursday that the winds were too high to safely hold the event on an outdoor stage. The Spring Fling stage was dismantled and removed from Old Campus on Friday morning.

In their email to students, members of the Spring Fling Committee wrote that they learned of the decision Thursday afternoon and had been “scrambling to find a solution” since then. 

“It seemed we would have to cancel the event altogether, but the students on the Spring Fling Committee have done an amazing job of creating a fallback plan,” Boyd told the News. “I’m grateful to College Street Music Hall for their willingness to accommodate us at the last minute, and to many Yale colleagues for their speed and flexibility.” 

The wristband distribution process, which began on Wednesday, has been canceled, with the committee voiding all wristbands which have been distributed. Tickets for the event, which remain free for all students, will now be distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis using Eventbrite. Ticketing will begin at 5:00 p.m. on Friday for graduating and first-semester seniors, and will open to the rest of the student body at 5:30 p.m. 

College Street Music Hall, however, has a capacity of 2,000 patrons, meaning that the majority of Yale’s 6,500 undergraduate students and 14,500 total student body will not be able to attend. According to the email from the Spring Fling Committee, College Street Music Hall will admit students on a rotating capacity system, admitting more students as people leave. 

Though the festival remains free, admission is first-come, first-serve. Wristbands that were handed out earlier in the week are no longer valid. The festival is using Eventbrite to distribute electronic tickets beforehand. However, on the day of, a rotating capacity system will allow for more attendees to be admitted as others leave. If a student with a ticket exits the concert early, they will not be allowed back in.

Although students were previously allowed to each bring one guest to the festival, it is now only open to enrolled Yalies.

“I was planning on having a friend come that goes to school in Canada,” Joaquín Fernandez-Duque ’25 told the News. “She changed her train to come here for Spring Fling and to get here in time to pick up her guest wristband. She’s now in Connecticut having spent the money to get here, but with no show to attend.” 

Alvin Delgado ’23 said he was glad to have guaranteed tickets as a senior, but noted that many of his friends were considering not attending due to the lack of re-entry, which limits the flexibility that the event usually provides. 

Delgado also said that College Street Music Hall  is not an ideal place for Spring Fling for the “crowd and energy” typical of Spring Fling. Having the festival indoors at all, Delgado said, would make it difficult to recreate the same chaos that Spring Fling usually brings. 

“I would’ve still been fine going if it was outdoors and raining and would’ve had the luxury of leaving, drying off, getting warm and coming back,” Delgado said. 

Cade Napier ’23 acknowledged the Spring Fling committee is doing their best, and said it is hard to do the right thing given the circumstances. 

Napier told the News he doesn’t want to stand outside in the rain waiting, given that the tickets do not guarantee entry, so he is undecided on whether or not he will attend. Friends of his, he said, joked about setting up a tent outside the venue. 

“Why bother giving tickets if getting a ticket doesn’t mean you get to go?” Napier told the News. 

In their email to students, the Spring Fling Committee acknowledged the inconvenience that the last-minute switch posed to the student body. 

“We know that this information is coming too late,” they wrote. “It’s coming too late for us as well.”

Neither the Spring Fling Committee, nor Yale’s Director of Emergency Management George Hines responded to immediate requests for comment. 

This is a developing story and will be updated.