Hip-hop artist Donald Glover, commonly known by stage name Childish Gambino, will headline this year's Spring Fling concert on April 26, Concert Board co-chairs Emily Schacter and Mark Bernado announced at Battle of The Bands last night.
The New Pornographers, an indie rock band, and electronic dance DJ's Flosstradamus will open for Childish Gambino. Battle of the Bands winner Waldo will be the opening act and runner up Not So Gentlemen will perform on Tuftstonia's Day.
According to Concert Board Co-chair Mark Bernardo, organizers selected the artists on the basis of student's preferred genre, artist availability and allocated budget. This year, Concert Board was able to offer bids to bigger-name artists after receiving $75,000 in extra funding from Tufts Community Union Senate.
Childish Gambino was Concert Board's first choice artist, according to Concert Board Production Assistant Katie Kurtz.
"The first bid we put out was accepted so it was our top choice and we're really excited about it," Kurtz, a sophomore, said.
Concert Board purposefully held off on announcing the Spring Fling artists in order to create hype and to encourage attendance at Battle of the Bands, Kurtz said.
"It was announced early last year because Nelly posted the concert on his site, but this year it was completely on our schedule," Kurtz said. "We like the idea of promoting one of our own events, and since Battle of the Bands is related to Spring Fling, it made sense to announce tonight."
While over the past few months the campus has heard rumors suggesting the Spring Fling headliner was Blink-182, Jason Derulo and a multitude of the other artists, Concert Board acknowledged that they started some of the rumors to get students talking.
"There have been a lot of weird names going around, most of which we started ourselves, but there were definitely some random ones," Kurtz said.
