Last weekend the freshman quad was unusually full, transformed by the smells and sounds of food vendors hawking their lemonade and gyros to students and community members enjoying the warm spring weather.
The 38th annual Spring Fair began with fireworks on Thursday night and continued throughout the weekend. Other attractions during the fair included a concert by the Roots on Saturday evening, food, arts and crafts vendors, a Beer Garden and carnival style games and attractions that lasted throughout the weekend.
According to Jane Rhyner, advisor for Spring Fair, this year 65 arts and crafts vendors and 24 food vendors participated in the fair.
In addition, several student organization and nonprofit groups from the community had booths throughout the weekend.
The fair included local vendors as well as vendors from as far as Florida.
Alicia Fisher, a henna artist from Virginia, was happy with the positive response she received at Hopkins.
"We're selling to a very intelligent crowd," Fisher said. "We do an art form that is a thousand years old. It's not just a tattoo, and people here get that."
While this was Fisher's first year as a vendor at Spring Fair, several other vendors have been involved with the fair for more than a decade.
Fredy Roncalla, a jewelry-maker from New York, has been selling his "type-writer" jewelry at Spring Fair for the past 15 years.
According to Roncalla, there seem to be fewer vendors at the fair since the first fair he attended.
"The first time I came, the whole upper and lower quads were filled with vendors," Roncalla said.
Roncalla also mentioned that there are not as many arts and crafts vendors as there used to be.
"There are more buy-and-sell vendors, and less hand-made goods," Roncalla said. "You need to keep a good balance. Too many buy-and-sell vendors can destroy a fair."
Hopkins alumnus Mark Degasparre, graduated from the University in 1989 and has only missed two Spring Fairs since then. "They've done a good job," Degasparre said. "But there seem to be less people here every year I come."
Rhyner, who has served as an advisor for Spring Fair since 1991, explained that prior to 2000, the fair was indeed more spread out on campus. In 2001, the University began beautification of the campus by putting in brick and new sprinklers.
As a result, trucks and cars were no longer allowed to drive onto the upper and lower quads, which restricted the areas in which the fair could take place.
According to Rhyner, before 2000, there were between 85 and 100 vendors each year. Since then, there have been between 60 and 70 vendors. "We can't do the fair all over campus like we used to," Rhyner said.
"We've changed both the look of the fair and the location of the fair in recent years. We've had to work a lot harder to get vendors to come."
In an email to the News-Letter, Jon Bernhardt, Spring Fair co-chair, wrote that this year's fair had the same number of food vendors as last year and well exceeded the number of arts and crafts vendors from last year.
Bernhardt also wrote that due to this year's warm weather, he assumed that the number of attendees was higher than last year, although there are no specific numbers.
This year, the fair made an effort to avoid disturbance in the community, according to Salem Reiner, Community Relations Coordinator for the University.
Reiner received only one call about noise during the fair this year. Last year, he received noise complaints about the concert that started late in the evening.
"[The concert] was exceptionally loud, and included heavy profanity," Reiner said of last year's concert. "That's not something people like hearing blocks away from campus."
In an effort to reduce disturbance, this year the fireworks at the Spring Fair kick-off event went off earlier, and the concert on Saturday night was scheduled to end earlier than last year."
The vast majority of the community enjoys Spring Fair as an opportunity to be on the campus," Reiner said.
"The Homewood campus doors are opened to everyone. It's the students saying 'Hey community, this is something for you.'"
Reiner also worked to involve the non-profit community around Hopkins in the fair by reserving spots for community tables.
