PACS Navigates Spring Fling Budget, Venue Change

By James Kelly

Published February 16, 2026

Groove Boston will headline Spring Fling once again on April 25th, but their performance will look much different than last year’s. Facing a substantial budget shortfall and a longer-than-expected recovery time for Mary Lyon Lawn, the Plymouth Activities Council for Students presented updates on the annual concert to the Student Senate last week.

With Mary Lyon Lawn officially ruled out as a venue, according to Student Engagement Assistant Director Grace Newhall, PACS will have to find another location. Until 2016, Spring Fling was held at AllWell North and the athletic fields on the Holderness part of campus, although Mary Lyon Lawn hosted related events. Student Life Director Jess Dutille said the initial move to Mary Lyon Lawn was a matter of safety, especially for potentially intoxicated students crossing Main St. and the bridge over the Pemigewasset River. “The risk increases if we’re on that side,” she said. 

Now, as the lawn recovers from a months-long project to update the campus steam heating system, Spring Fling must once again relocate to avoid ripping the lawn back up, Dutille said. 

The Hyde Hall parking lot has emerged as one candidate to host this year’s Spring Fling. Dutille admitted the parking lot would be less attractive than Mary Lyon Lawn, but said Hyde could also offer some benefits. With a full acre, Hyde would provide more usable space than Mary Lyon Lawn. And an asphalt surface, rather than a grassy one, could also cut some $5,000 in flooring costs, said PACS Treasurer Riley Lyons.

Another, alleged location option for Spring Fling is the Alumni Green — the area of lawn between the HUB and Speare – though The Clock could not independently verify its candidacy. “There is no frontrunner for a Spring Fling location at the moment,” said Nicole Nover, Assistant Director of Student Experience, in an email. Organizers will near a location decision after a meeting with the town this week, PACS President Avery Hazelton told The Clock. “As of right now, nothing is firmly off of the table with the exception of Mary Lyon Lawn,” he said.

PACS initially requested $63,470 in Conferences, Events, and Activities funding to support Spring Fling, an amount that far exceeded the roughly $31,000 left in the CEA budget, according to Student Senate Treasurer Cosette Brochu. Spring Fling was allocated $50,000 at the beginning of the year, according to the Student Senate’s student organization financial reports, and PACS has so far fundraised some $1,200.  Spring Fling cost $139,000 last year, according to PACS.

Without additional funding, PACS would need to raise ticket prices for students from $10 to at least $15, Hazelton said. “It’s a pretty big worry for us, even though it doesn’t sound like a big change,” he said. “We’re all worried about how that will go over.” Even the $10 ticket price has raised objections from students, Hazelton added. 

PACS sold around 400 Spring Fling tickets last year, including some 25 VIP tickets that included merchandise and early entry. But PACS had anticipated selling 400 VIP tickets alone, which left them with a massive surplus of merch that was eventually distributed for free at the end of the concert, Hazelton said. 

The $63,470 ask was immediately a nonstarter for the Student Senate. “I’d like to inform PACS that we don’t have enough funds to meet this request,” Senate Speaker Taylor Smith said in an email before Monday’s meeting. Instead, he recommended that the Student Senate postpone its CEA a decision and use the meeting to help PACS brainstorm ways to cut costs and raise money.

By opting for scaled down lighting and effects, as well as a smaller stage, Hazelton said PACS has already shaved roughly $17,000 off of the Groove Boston Contract, which cost $76,487 last year. PACS may also reduce Spring Fling sticker and t-shirt production, and is exploring the option to use the Plymouth and Holderness Police Departments, rather than a private company, for security. 

PACS is also likely to look to the beer garden to save money, since only a fraction of Spring Fling attendees are old enough to use it. “It’s quite a hefty expense on our sheet, and if we can’t make ends meet, that’s pretty much one of the first big things that we’re going to have to scale down and cut out as we move forward,” Hazelton said. The bulk of the expense for the beer garden, Lyons added, comes from tenting, which cost some $10,000 last year. Even reducing the physical size of the beer garden, he said, could reduce the cost significantly. Or, rather than cutting or shrinking the beer garden, PACS may look to Students in Professional Sales for help, who they said have expressed interest in sponsoring the beer garden with a “Sipping with SIPS” slogan. Though PACS is still “mulling over” the idea, Hazelton said they are “definitely interested.” SIPS did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

Members of the Student Senate also offered suggestions on ways they could help fundraise for Spring Fling. PACS is planning a bake sale that will feature “Christmas crack,” and representatives proposed ways to encourage clubs and organizations to donate portions of their allocations towards Spring Fling.

University System Student Trustee Ethan Dupuis recommended the Senate donate the money set aside for their end-of-the-year banquet, about $2,600. “I’d like to fund as much as we can for Spring Fling,” he said. “I want a beer garden. I want other stuff. I want fun merch.”

Dupuis also criticized the Student Senate’s stewardship of the CEA fund, and in particular their decision in November to give Model United Nations $11,799.96 to send 11 members to a conference in Peru. “We had a very flip-flopping kind of philosophy where we were overfunding certain things,” he said. “This is the bed that we’ve made, and we have to lie in it now.”