dbo:abstract
- Spring Weekend is a student-organized music festival hosted annually in April at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Spring Weekend was officially founded in 1950, though is rooted in a late 19th century spring festival tradition known as Junior Promenade. Celebrity artists were first brought to campus starting in the 1960s. The festival is organized by the Brown Concert Agency, a student group overseen by Brown's Student Activities Office and funded by the university's Undergraduate Finance Board. Historical Spring Weekend acts include Bob Dylan (1964 and 1997), Ella Fitzgerald (1965), Ray Charles (1967), James Brown (1968), Bruce Springsteen (1974), U2 (1983), R.E.M. (1985), and Sonic Youth (1998). More recent headliners include Snoop Dogg (2010), Childish Gambino (2012), Kendrick Lamar (2013), Young Thug (2017), Daniel Caesar (2019), and Mitski (2019). Noted non-musical Spring Weekend guests include Martin Luther King Jr. (1967) and Allen Ginsberg (1968). In 2020, the festival was cancelled for the first time since 1950 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. (en)