Written By: Clare Duckworth, Copy Director
Last April, the University of Michigan’s campus was taken over once again for the sixth annual SpringFest. This year, we put on the biggest (and arguably best!) SpringFest to date. Through a unique, first of its kind partnership with the world’s largest record label, Universal Music Group, we were able to scale up the production to a whole new level. We worked hand in hand with their College Marketing and Lifestyle Division in order to continue to successfully execute this truly amazing festival.
With this, we were very excited to bring on two massive new sponsorship activations with the Clorox tie-dye booth and the SONY Sound Lounge. At the Clorox tie-dye booth, participants used bleach to tie-dye t-shirts that featured musical icons like the Beatles, Justin Bieber, and Travis Scott. The SONY Sound Lounge was bumping all day with giveaways, DJ sets, and panelists. The daytime portion also included 60+ student organizations and startups, several Detroit and Ann Arbor pop-up shops, corporate and university sponsors, a startup pitch competition called “MTank,” food trucks, a rap cypher, and students from every corner of campus. And if you weren’t at any of these amazing festivities, you probably found yourself at the day stage jamming to local and national artists including Shmongo, Saint Mesa, Nightly, and Ocean Park Standoff.
As for the nighttime portion of SpringFest, we moved our benefit concert from Hill Auditorium (as it had been years prior) to the Crisler Center, home of the University of Michigan men and women’s basketball teams. The concert was headlined by rap legends 2 Chainz, Lil Yachty, and Desiigner and brought in over 4,000 attendees. The move to Crisler was a paramount milestone for MM, as there had not been a concert at the Crisler Center for over 15 years. Following the concert, there was an afterparty and meet and greet with Desiigner at the popular bar Skeeps (or Scorekeepers for the uninitiated). Quite a few of our members might have had very similar profile pictures as a result.
Even though we’re in the heart of fall here in Ann Arbor, we still can’t get over how amazing SpringFest 2017 was. We think our SpringFest chair, Ayla Ahmed, said it best herself in that “SpringFest is an incredibly powerful and inspiring space for students across all disciplines. By pairing the best of student work with activations and activities, the day brings campus alive with excitement and energy."
See you in April!