Go big or go home: the case for a single Lawnparties

The lead-up to Amaarae’s Lawnparties performance Sunday was plagued by discourse around her selection as headliner despite her lack of name recognition. While she represents a fresh fusion of pop, R&B, Afrobeats, and alté for the main event, some students were dissatisfied, citing the relatively modest streaming numbers she had compared to past Lawnparties acts on platforms such as Fizz.

Complaints over the “popularity” of the headliner begs a larger question: why not consolidate USG resources and sponsor one blowout Lawnparties in the Spring to satisfy the student body?

At its core, the point of Lawnparties is to function as a unifying campus experience, not to spotlight smaller artists in the headliner spot. It is one of the first introductions first-years get to Princeton’s beloved social traditions. Even the Spring 2025 opener Daya has more monthly Spotify listeners than Amaarae, despite not being invited as a headliner.

Having two Lawnparties, one in fall and one in spring, forces organizers to compromise between a lesser-known artist with appropriate vendors and production value. However, hosting one annual Lawnparties would help organizers secure artists with widespread appeal through a larger budget.

Princeton’s peer institutions offer a model for consolidating Lawnparties into one spring event in order to choose artists that are more familiar and exciting for students. The University of Pennsylvania holds one big annual concert series, Spring Fling — and has hosted big names such as Metro Boomin, Chance the Rapper, and Janelle Monae. Penn’s total budget for the event is approximately what Princeton’s would be if we only held one concert series — about $524,800, including revenue from ticket sales. Last spring, Doechii came to Stanford’s spring concert series, Frost Fest, thrilling students.

While the 2023 budget for the Stanford Concert Network, which funds Frost Fest, was hardly more than our estimated Fall 2023 Lawnparties budget of $220,000, ticket sales for the event likely netted around $200,000 for the event. All this indicates that by consolidating Lawnparties, USG could afford artists that are as popular, if not more so, than those at our peer schools.

If the campus community wants to retain fall Lawnparties as a tradition, eating clubs could continue to independently organize their own concerts — an aspect of the event that many students enjoy more than the headliner. USG could provide basic support as needed but conserve the majority of its budget for spring Lawnparties. By eliminating the cost of food vendors in the fall as well as promotional and production costs, significantly more funds could be dedicated to attracting a popular spring headliner.

Beyond enabling the selection of bigger-name artists, combining fall and spring Lawnparties into one blowout spring event ensures that the celebration happens at a more convenient time for students. Spring Lawnparties happens at the beginning of reading period — a point in the semester when students generally have more free time and feel more comfortable relaxing. It also provides a much-needed stress reliever after a long semester of classes. But fall Lawnparties happens after the first week of classes, a notoriously chaotic moment when students are already inundated with work, interviewing for clubs, and balancing various obligations.

For first-years in particular, the timing of fall Lawnparties is particularly overwhelming. First-years are coming off of an exhaustive 10-day orientation and their first week of more advanced classes than they’ve ever taken before. Many of them have just completed a slew of club applications and tryouts; they’re having the same “where are you from and what’s your major” conversation with thirty-seven new people a day. The last thing they need is a marathon of day drinking and sweaty mosh pits. Fall Lawnparties is not an ideal way to orient first-years to the Princeton social experience: but in the spring, once students have settled into their routines and friendships, they’re much more likely to fully enjoy the experience.

One unforgettable event to end the year is more valuable to the student community than two watered-down ones. Instead of bringing about an argument over the size of the artists, consolidating fall and spring budgets into one would reinforce the position of Lawnparties as a quintessentially Princeton tradition and a mainstay of the social experience.

Contributing Opinion Writer Sarah Park is a junior pursuing a major in History and minors in East Asian Studies and Philosophy. She is from Manila, Philippines, and can be reached at sarahpark[at]princeton.edu.