Photo courtesy of Samirah Jaigirdar
Floralia, defined on the Connecticut College website as “one of the best parties of the year,” made its long-awaited return to the Library Green after a two-year hiatus. The day-long student music festival put on by the Student Activities Council (SAC) was full of music by student bands and bigger names alike, featuring a henna booth, face painting, fan favorite food trucks such as Munchies, Whisktopia and Luigi’s Wood-Fired Pizza, and hundreds of happy students decked out in glitter and their best outfit. But what does it take to put on such an event?
The Floralia budget is never one defined amount. “It fluctuates every year,” said Ethan Dubnansky ‘22, SAC’s Concert Chair who helps bring all the musical acts together. “This year, we negotiated with SGA to get more money to put the event on.” This is Dubnansky’s fourth year as part of the Floralia festivity team.
“We dedicate $60,000 out of the SAC budget,” Jeanette Williams, the Associate Director of Student Engagement said during our interview. “$30,000 comes out of the Student Engagement budget. If we need more for security, staffing, and other things, we end up playing it by ear and pull it out of our leftover funds. It usually is around $80,000-$85,000 dollars to plan.”
Floralia is planned by the eight executives on the SAC board, the majority of whom are juniors and seniors, with two representatives from the ‘24 and ‘25 class years. “It was a really interesting dynamic because we had a limited number of people who had even experienced a Floralia. At the same time it’s been a big enough chunk of people planning who are graduating that we’ll need to do a lot of recruiting so that we can provide events the same way that the Conn community expects. Working with people who had never experienced it was funny; seniors would refer to components that seemed so normal to us but confused those who had never experienced it, like the tents that everyone sets up,” said Dubnansky.
In a normal year, SAC would begin planning for Floralia in November. “We’d typically have a headliner by November,” Dubnansky continued. “This year that was a little different, a really different dynamic with a more rushed schedule.” They were told that spring events were going to happen back in December, but on what scale was a bigger question that no one could answer. “We were confident that no matter what there would be some form of Floralia,” he added. SAC began planning the festival at the beginning of second semester, booking their first act in mid-January. “I had to put an out clause in every contract,” laughed Williams, explaining that if the event needed to be scaled down they could do so without a problem.
When choosing musical artists, the committee aims to represent as many music styles and genres as possible. “We do recognize that some genres are more popular than others on campus and try to include them as headliners. However, we’re always trying to diversify the music styles we present,” said Dubnansky. The budget varies for each artist and nothing is set in stone. “I’m personally looking forward the most to IDK,” he admitted. Iyaz is also a top contender. “As the person putting this all together, I remember seeing Ellie Duhey perform live “Happy Now” and “Tiny Down,” and it was insane seeing everyone sing along as a group. I think it will be awesome to see that again with “Replay.”
Despite the rain and the hail, Floralia went on as planned, bringing the long-awaited concert back to life for a new group of Camels.
