Next Saturday, April 18, hundreds of students will congregate on Shaw Field (hopefully, thinking realistically about Minnesota weather in April) for the annual celebration of spring.

Over its half-century history, Springfest has taken many shapes. From an informal hangout in the Kirk courtyard to a concert featuring stars in the making, this celebration of a school year’s winding down continually evolves. There are different venues, more people and new music every year. Except nowadays, it includes significantly less beer.

Welcome back to “Way back at Mac,” the column where we guide you through the wild and wonderful weirdness that hides within The Mac Weekly’s archive. This week, we turn to Macalester’s annual celebration of spring — which only occasionally coincides with freak April snow showers. As the Mac community prepares for its annual bash, we find ourselves asking: How exactly did Springfest begin? How did it grow into what it is today? Follow along, fellow archive enthusiasts, as we travel back to the Springfests of the past.

It appears that Springfest’s very earliest iterations were so casual and small-scale that they were not suitable for coverage by The Mac Weekly. It is only in ’88 that we find a report placing Springfest’s debut in 1971. We are not entirely sure how this information was procured, but Springfest ’71 was described as “an entirely unofficial student party in the Kirk courtyard, with lots of music, beer and other substances. The administration neither helped nor hindered, but there were staff and faculty around; some even involved themselves in organizing the party.”

In 1974, Springfest was proud to announce performances from Heaven Hill String Band, Eugene Stump’s Group and Lamont Cranston. That year’s event was billed as the second annual Springfest, as it seems to mark the second year that Macalester administration gave official permission to host the event. The occasion was advertised as “the best medium-size bash ever seen in these parts” in the May 3, 1974 edition of our paper.

That same year, security measures were taken to prevent the unwelcome appearance of any drunk 16-yearolds, who were reportedly an issue throughout the early incarnation of the event. In a moment of concern for either those easily-influenced youth or the kegs, the May 3, 1974 issue insisted that “We would like to keep these people away from the beer.”

An editorial penned on May 10, 1974 described Springfest in retrospect: “People that were around
had the glimmer of the feeling that, ‘finally, I am part of something good, something effective at Macalester.’”

Springfest began to accelerate, propelled by this good will. Early iterations of Springfest were adamant about its status as a kegger. Beer and music were coequal goals, and there are many points in the Springfest record where beer seems like the preeminent concern.

Before the national minimum drinking age was set to 21 in 1986, alcohol and the kegger were open parts of Mac life. The Nov. 22, 1974 issue of The Mac Weekly reported the sobering (or far from it) fact that 256 gallons of beer were drunk on a single Saturday in the basement of Kirk Hall.

For perspective, that is more than a can of beer for every single one of the approximately 2,000 students currently enrolled in our dear institution. These are rookie numbers offhandedly written on a slow news day. On Feb. 28, 1975, during planning for Springfest, The Mac Weekly reported on the projection that 75 kegs would be present at the festival. This is equivalent to 1,162.5 gallons of beer, or 5.8 cans of beer each for 2,000 students. This is a lot of beer.

Perhaps considering the sheer debauchery that this quantity entails, it’s understandable that Dean of Students Earl Bowman ’50 (of Bowman Hall, you may have heard of it) objected to the entire concept of Springfest.

“I have to consider that number of people getting together and imbibing, and the potential for difficulties. […] I don’t want the responsibility,” Bowman said.

Bowman’s remarks were made during a bitter argument about the usage of the football field to hold Springfest. Athletic director Ralph Lundeen was of the opinion that “We don’t think the stadium is the place to hold a beer and pot party. […] We have a track meet the next day and we don’t want the place smelling of beer.”

This argument did not dissuade the student body, and the conflict went as far as to include threats of suspension being thrown at the persistent organizers by our very own Bowman. A compromise was found, and Springfest 1975 was held on Shaw Field. The rest is history. Though the location of Springfest has moved a few more times over its 53-year history, it has always found its way back to Shaw Field. Professor Emeritus Dave McCurdy, for whom the annual McCurdy Lecture in Anthropology is named and who is very often seen walking his dog around campus, performed that year alongside A Doty Band, Haze and Short Stuff. It was, by all accounts, a success, despite Bowman’s best efforts.

By 1979, Springfest had entered into the noble pantheon of Mac oddities. An editorial penned on April 27 of that year places it among traditions “like our losing football team and Kirby the dog. Springfest is one of those things that make Mac unique.”

Kirby, for those who have shamefully forgotten, was one of the pack of semi-feral campus dogs who stalked Macalester in the late 70s. Alongside his compatriots Jolson and Gloopy, Kirby sniffed around the Grille and the garbage cans across the neighborhood, to the joy of the student body and the chagrin of public safety. No pictures of Kirby remain within the pages of The Mac Weekly. In 1978 one of Kirby’s canine companions, whose name was undisclosed, bit a local child while roving campus. We could not find a conclusion to this story in the pages of The Mac Weekly.

On Oct. 2, 1981, The Mac Weekly released an editorial beginning with the ominous line “Springfest is in trouble.” It seems the editorial board of the day was onto something, as a little over four months later the headline “Mac student claims injury during Springfest” darkened the pages of the paper. The Feb. 19, 1982 issue names the college and one student as co-defendants in a lawsuit out of Ramsey County District Court. The plaintiff was a student who, while not named in the article, sued for the sum of $50,000 (nearly $170,000 today). The article discusses the summons received by the college, stating “[the] student making the complaint said that injury occurred at last year’s Springfest. The summons states that [the defendant] walked into the plaintiff.”

By 1988, the nature of Springfest had been called into question by changing tastes and a declining budget. Students, for some unexplained but likely complicated socio-political reasons, had considerably less taste for the weed and hacky-sack festivals that had flourished less than a decade prior. Program Board, which Springfest had by then become reliant on, had severely cut funding for the event. The organization of Springfest had been delegated to a student council of less than 15. Springfest ’88 strove to restore the spirit of the olden days, questioning students passing through the Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center about what bands to invite and even spreading a rumor about The Kinks headlining. This turned out to be false, but enthusiasm began to reemerge, and Springfest took its current shape.

This modern form very often resembled the event’s historic form. Springfest ’90 was characterized by a denunciation of drug use amongst the student body. With the “War on Drugs” in full swing, the abundance of pot that swept through the reinvigorated Springfest prompted a number of stern talking-tos. The spirit of the 60s was becoming part of campus legend. The renewed conservatism of the time clashed with a student body who—according to the Chair of the Springfest Organizing Committee quoted in the Oct. 21, 1988 issue—had heard “many rumors about what happened at [the original] Springfest including garbage bags of marijuana being thrown out of windows and sixties-type love-ins.”

Springfest, despite how The Mac Weekly historically describes it, is not just a time for debauchery. It is, at its core, a music festival. Hundreds of bands have graced Shaw Field. Many of the earliest acts, including Professor McCurdy’s Moldy Figs and many student bands, have tragically faded into history without albums to their name. Better known are the likes of Mojo Buford, Willie and the Bumblebees, Shortstuff, Shangoya and The Daisy Dillman Band—who may have less name recognition these days but certainly killed in their prime.

These writers firmly recommend Mojo Buford (who performed at Springfest 1978)’s “Picking Rags,” available on Spotify. Bob Marley was very seriously considered as the headliner of Springfest ’75, but his asking price was $3,000. Despite Mr. Marley’s famed insistence that “wisdom is better than silver and gold,” the organizing committee thought that his wisdom probably wasn’t better than that much gold.

As any historian of Springfest will violently insist to you, there have been real famous artists at Springfest. The annual complaint of “never heard of this guy” is absolutely unfounded because in 2000 we got the Black Eyed Peas. Yes, the artists behind your mom’s favorite dance tracks like “I Gotta Feeling” and “Rock That Body” once had the opportunity to admire the walls of Olin-Rice Hall and enjoy the average high temperature for that April, 43 degrees.

Mind you, this was 2000, and the Black Eyed Peas had only a single album with moderately high reviews. They would not break into the big leagues for another three years. The lesson today is, appreciate your Springfest headliners to the best of your abilities. In ten years, you might have something cool to tell your kids.

2018 brought perhaps the most impactful change of recent years. The 44th annual Springfest was the last one where officially subsidized beer is mentioned. Some may say that Springfest hasn’t been the same since.

Throughout its existence, Springfest has faced a wide variety of budget problems. While most of these result from limited money from the student activity fund—a struggle all student organization leaders are very familiar with—the most peculiar issue actually resulted from Winter Ball.

In December of 2011, Winter Ball was held off campus at International Market Square, west of downtown Minneapolis. According to The Mac Weekly’s Feb. 10, 2012 issue, this Winter Ball resulted in “at least two incidents of broken walls, three incidents of student urinating on the floor, two toilets clogged and several plants uprooted.” The same issue discusses how the $2,143.72 needed to cover the damages would be taken from the Program Board budget for the rest of the year, heavily affecting planning for Springfest.

Despite the physical, monetary and reputational damage Winter Ball 2011 caused, Macalester would continue to organize the event at various off-campus locations—to varying degrees of success—until the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of Winter Ball 2020. The dance has been held in the Leonard Center every year since 2021. 

Speaking of the pandemic, 2020 saw the first year since the event’s foundation that no Springfest occurred on Macalester campus. Traditional Springfest only returned in 2022; however, a virtual Springfest was apparently held at some point in 2021. The only reference to this event occurs on page 3 of our April 8, 2022 issue. According to that article, Phoebe Bridgers headlined the virtual bash, and student band Bakermiller Pink provided the opening act. No other information regarding virtual Springfest 2021 can be found in our archive. 

And yet, the time comes again where the earth has thawed and the daffodils begin to poke through the new-green grass. Let us celebrate the new season! Together we’ll once again trample those daffodils back into the ground and look back at the fifty-odd years of our fellow Scots who did the same before us.

Springfest 2026 will take place on Saturday, April 18 on Shaw Field. As of the writing of this article, the event will feature DJ Pyrx, Sergeant Dan and Tisakorean. The headlining act has yet to be announced. 

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