This April on campus, there is to be no spring concert. Instead, Student Life Director Sherri Rae said there will be a Spring Fling: a series of activities filling a weekend.

In the past, Pitt-Johnstown has hosted a popular band in the Sports Center each April. According to Rae, in that time, there was one pop station on the radio that most people listened to.

In order to capture most people’s interests, Programming Board called in one of the bands playing on the radio. They filled the entire Sports Center, Rae said.

At this point, however, general music tastes have grown and expanded. It is impossible to encompass everyone’s favorite genre in one concert, Rae said.

“Some concerts bring about 500 people. Others bring about 1,000 or 800 people,” Rae said.

“It’s been a mix of students and community,” she said.

“A third to a half of Programming Board’s money goes to the concert,” Rae said.

Since students are less interested in the bands hosted at Pitt-Johnstown, it is not worth as much to host them.

“Costs are so extreme,” Student Affairs Associate Vice President Bob Knipple said.

“It’s not a good use of (students’) money,” Knipple said.

Junior Jeremy Chotiner helped out as security during last year’s concert. Mike Stud and Timeflies were brought in, Chotiner said.

“About 700 to 800 tickets were sold, they said,” Chotiner said. “But fans from Cambria (County) came, so it wasn’t all students.”

Instead of hosting a single concert that does not fully pique students’ interest, Rae and Knipple plan on creating a host of different activities that cater to a greater variety of students.

Rae said she plans to host a music event with a disc jokey, lighting and atmosphere similar to a dance as part of the Fling. Tickets, she said, would be only a few dollars.

According to Rae, depending on what Pitt-Oakland’s and Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s spring concert choices are, Programming Board is to buy blocks of tickets to these shows for Pitt-Johnstown students to attend.

“It’s way cheaper than hosting ourselves,” Rae said.

“We’d have to pay for stage lighting and setup where bigger campuses might have that already set up and available to them.”

Spring Fling would also include small acts from Johnstown or Pittsburgh to fit different niches of student interest and remind students of home, according to Rae. Tickets to these acts would be free.

The Spring Fling is to be held over a weekend in early April.