Spring Fling 2024 showcases rising student talent and mainstream acts A celebration of spring and student camaraderie, the highly anticipated music festival included a line-up of student acts, Seldom Street, Strictly Platonic and VNA, and headliners such as Coco & Breezy, Dayglow and Swae Lee. words by cody skinner. photos by ellie park.

Seldom Street and the following student band, Strictly Platonic, came out on top as winners of this year’s Battle of the Bands contest and have gained traction throughout the school year. Seldom Street, led by Pilar Bylinsky ’25, played a set of soft rock, including original tracks, to an audience of the band’s fans. Strictly Platonic released their last album in December 2023 and their performance marked their second appearance at Spring Fling.

This year, Spring Fling debuted “The Dock,” a virtual DJ competition where student DJs uploaded recorded sets to YouTube, and Yale students voted for their top two selections. Annie Nguyen ’25, performing under the moniker Vna, emerged as the victor — earning the chance to showcase her talent live at the festival. Her competitors included “Smacks,” “Easy Rock & Funky North” and “Keebo.”

After Vna capped off the student acts, twin producers and DJ-duos Coco & Breezy took to the stage with their Afro-Latine-infused dance and house set. As the pair moved in sync with one another, they emerged from their DJ booths to dance along with students. Behind the booth, affirmative phrases such as “I am powerful” and “I am rich” flashed on the screen, which students read aloud in a chorus of positivity and togetherness.

To the delight of audience members, the duo tossed out a pair of sunglasses from their eponymous eyewear brand into the crowd. The sisters originally moved out to New York to launch their eyewear company before pursuing dance music professionally. After leaving the stage, the duo re-entered and extended their performance by an extra ten minutes.

Dayglow took the stage next and pivoted the mood of the festival with their set of dreamy-indie and easy-listening hits. In between sets, Sloan Struble, Dayglow’s frontman, jokingly interacted with audiences. When a member of the crowd asked him about his “biggest inspiration,” Struble giggled and sheepishly replied, “My biggest inspiration is you.”

Julia Grobman ’25, a self-declared Dayglow superfan, had the opportunity to interact with a band she “stanned.”

“I ended up getting snuck into soundcheck earlier in the day,” said Grobman. “He was making jokes and was like ‘I want to have a Yale diploma, but without any of the work. Can someone get me a Yale Diploma?’ So me and my friend immediately got a picture of a diploma, edited his name in, and printed it out!”

During Dayglow’s performance, Struble was given a fake diploma by a different fan, much to Grobman’s surprise. Nevertheless, Grobman passed her creation along to a stage technician in hopes that her diploma would reach Struble backstage. After much asking, she managed to get a copy of the setlist that was used by the band during their performance.

The evening’s energy peaked during Swae Lee’s set, where he was introduced by his DJ, who hyped up the crowd and played a series of tracks such as “No Hands” by Roscoe Dash and Waka Flocka Flam and “Faneto” by Chief Keef.

Notably, during Swae Lee’s performance, the artist climbed up and swung from stage scaffolding.

“Spring Fling was so good,” said Aaliyah Short ’27. “It was so much fun seeing Swae Lee, especially when he jumped up that thing and was climbing around.”

Though the venue was crowded throughout the night, the crowd was especially packed before Swae Lee’s performance. A member of the security team told audience members to take two steps back to prevent crowd crushing.

Swae’s set was met with much enthusiasm from festivalgoers as a sea of recording phones stared back at him. Throughout his performances, Swae Lee commented on the crowd of Yale students, making references to Connecticut and saying that Yale students have “so much energy.”