Guster to headline Spring Fair

Pop rock trio Guster is set to play at this year's Spring Fair concert, according to Spring Fair 2004 Executive Co-Chair Janet Chang.

After sending an open bid to a number of bands, including O.A.R. and Maroon 5, the Spring Fair 2004 committee received a response from Guster, who signed a contract Wednesday to perform at the April 24 concert.

While ticket prices and sale dates are still being discussed, the committee hopes to begin selling to the public in mid-March and will start publicizing the event within the next week.

"We're really excited about Guster," said Spring Fair 2004 Co-Chair Howard Chang. "They're definitely a bigger band ...[and] a different direction from last year."

Last year's Spring Fair concert, which featured Blackalicious and Pharcyde, sold only 500 tickets, prompting the organizers to make admission free of charge in order to attract attendees. This year's co-chairs hope that Guster's broader appeal, as well as better planning and advertising of ticket sales on the part of the committee, will improve turnout.

"We knew we didn't want another hip-hop band," said Janet Chang. "[Guster] will be a nice change of pace." Howard Chang said, "It would be difficult to get a bigger band than Guster" given the smaller size of a venue like Hopkins and described Guster as a well-known, "college-type band."

According to nighttime co-chair Karina Schumacher-Villisante, booking Guster exceeded the committee's expectations, considering the tight budget it was forced to work with.

"We were looking for [bands] we thought would cater better to a college campus," said nighttime co-chair Karina Schumacher-Villlisante, "but we were not even thinking about getting Guster. [They] were way beyond our price range. We were going to put on a show, whatever risks we had to take ... but we weren't sure how good it was going to be."

Because the usual $8,000 - 10,000 from the Office of the Dean of Student Life was cut this year, the committee had only $16,000 in their budget. Because most of this would be tied up in production costs, there was little funding left to pay for a band. But once the Hopkins Organization for Programming (HOP) agreed to co-sponsor the concert and fund $15,000, the committee was able to afford Guster's $24,000 price tag.

Schumacher-Villisante predicted that this year's concert has "a better chance of being sold-out than in recent years" and credited the committee's success to organized and early planning.

To ensure better ticket sales this year, the committee is considering selling tickets through Musictoday, Inc., a lesser-known but, according to Howard Chang, more dependable alternative to Ticketmaster.

"Music today seems like a more reliable company...[though] we're afraid people haven't heard of it,"he said.

Although April is "the hardest time to book a band," according to Schumacher-Villisante, Guster happened to be booked for a show in Virginia the Friday night before the Spring Fair concert.

"If they didn't find another act for [that] Saturday, they were going to drop Virginia and go elsewhere," said Schumacher-Villisante. "So it was great that we came in when we did...to keep [the band] on the east coast."