Spring Fair energizes Homewood campus

This weekend marked Hopkins’s 43rd annual Spring Fair, the largest student-run festival in the country. Organized by a team of 45 undergraduates, along with two faculty advisors, the Charles Village tradition featured food trucks, a beer garden, carnival rides, live performances and contests. This year’s theme was Heroes and Villains.

According to Spring Fair Committee members, roughly 25,000 people attended this year’s Fair. The Homewood Campus was filled with Hopkins students and staff members, as well as thousands of members of the greater Baltimore community. Because it is always completely open to the public, local families comprise a majority of the Fair’s attendees.

“Our goal is to get as many people as possible excited about Fair, both within Hopkins and the greater Baltimore community, and to see a bigger turnout each year,” Advertising and Fundraising Committee member Grace Foster said.

Perhaps the most prominent feature of Spring Fair was the Food Quad. The freshman quad was completely covered with food vendors and tables. Some popular venues included Chicken on a Stick, Wild Bill’s Soda, Wood Fried Foods and Hoffman’s funnel cakes and fried Oreos.

“I always thought fried Oreos were overrated, but after this weekend, they’re definitely underrated in my opinion,” freshman Alec Maki, a member of the Nighttime Committee, said.

The President’s Lawn was home to the Beer Garden, another central component of Spring Fair. Ten varieties of beer were available on tap for a price of either $2 or $3. The Beer Garden also featured a special happy hour for the senior class on Friday afternoon.

In past years, student groups sold the beer, but this year Committee members decided to work with a third party distributor. The prices still remained the same, and student groups were permitted to sell merchandise. Over 3,500 wristbands were estimated to have been distributed on Saturday alone.

This year’s Kids Section of Spring Fair featured a carnival with several rides, including a Ferris wheel, face painting, ponies, a petting zoo, a magician and the Annual Physics Fair. Student groups ran many of these attractions.

“[The Kids Section] is important because, when college students think of Spring Fair, they think of food vendors and arts and crafts vendors, but we also have to think of the rest of Baltimore,” freshman Hannah Folz, a member of the Kids Committee, said. 

On Keyser Quad, over 85 vendors sold handmade and commercial items, including jewelry, soaps, clothes, fine art and food. Each year, the Arts & Crafts Committee evaluates local artists and hand-selects these vendors. This year, the Arts & Crafts Quad was expanded to include more even vendors than before.

Live music was played continuously in the Beer Garden and on the Beach. The Music Committee, which strove to support local artists, hired over 20 performers from Baltimore and beyond.

“The Spring Fair crew did a great job with their music selection,” freshman Julie Liu said. “One of my favorites was Charlie Mars, who is known for his music on the TV show ‘Weeds.’ He created a great vibe with his chill tunes and even included sing-along parts for the audience.” 

Spring Fair’s games and contests portion featured annual events, such as a chariot race and pie- and wing-eating contests between sororities and fraternities, but this year brought new activities as well.

“This year’s theme allowed us to try out some new contests, like the Superhero Costume Contests ... and the weekend-long scavenger hunt,” Sage Reisner, director of Games and Contests Committee, wrote in an email to The News-Letter.

Spring Fair kicked off on Thursday night with a firework display on the Decker Quad and a party on the steps of Levering. This event included a beer patio, music, food and free giveaways. Hundreds of students turned up to celebrate the beginning of an action-packed weekend.

The festivities spread as far as Hampden, where the Nighttime Committee organized “Hopkins Night in Hampden,” in which several restaurants, bars and cafés on 36th Street offered special deals to Fair attendees on Saturday night. Buses shuttled students to and from the Homewood campus all night.

Senior Mary Berman and junior Luke Jenusaitus headed this year’s Spring Fair team under the leadership of faculty advisors Janet Kirsch and Jane Rhyner. The camaraderie amongst the Committee’s members is apparent.

“We’re a really tight-knit team – everyone’s been going through a bit of separation anxiety since Fair ended!” Berman wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “All of the Committees were so devoted to their individual aspects of Spring Fair, and they kept everything running smoothly. Planning Spring Fair starts in October for the staff and in the summer for us co-chairs, so it’s a long process. This year, almost everyone worked really hard from the very beginning, and it paid off.”

Folz agreed with Berman.

“We were up each morning at five or six, but it was so worth it,” Folz said. “It was definitely very rewarding and exciting, and it really was a Spring Fair family.”

Spring Fair 2014 was held in honor of John Ostrowski, who participated in the Fair for 20 years and passed away last week. He was considered by many to be one of the friendliest vendors in the Food Quad, and his famous Polish Sausage was consistently a crowd pleaser.

“We definitely dedicated Fair entirely to him,” Jenusaitis said. “He was a loyal vendor, and it was sad to see one of our friends and family go.”

On the whole, Spring Fair received positive reviews from the organizers of the event.

“Even though it was very time-consuming, it was a really great experience and it was really cool to see it all come together week by week,” Maki said. “It was definitely a successful weekend.”

Freshman Perri Searles, a member of the Plant Operations Committee, also considered the Fair to be an important achievement.

“It was incredible to see how all of our work came together and culminated in such a great weekend,” Searles said. “It is crazy to think that this is the largest student-run fair in the country and humbling to be a part of it ... It was by far one of the greatest experiences I’ve had and I can’t wait to do it again.”