By Matt Kiernan

Central Activities Network announced the opening and headlining acts for the CAN Spring Week Concert at the Winter Week Sno Ball dance to a crowd of students anticipating the announcement; Washington D.C.-based rapper Wale will open and the pop-punk band of “My Friends Over You” fame New Found Glory will headline the April 24 show.

“We wanted to find an act that had enough energy for a spring concert,” said Vice President of Programming of CAN, Chris Leahy.

CAN polled CCSU students through surveys and questionnaires to find out what musicians they would have liked to see perform on campus. A Facebook page was created online that garnered up to 400 members, and students could write in the bands they would’ve liked to see.

“We looked at other hip-hop artists, but since we previously had Trey Songz come to campus, we wanted more of a rock and pop mix,” said Leahy.

Many of the students who took the poll of the artists they would want, chose the alternative-rock bands Green Day and Weezer. Since it would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to book either of the two bands, CAN looked for a band similar to those acts.

CAN has a budget of $70,000 to spend on the concert, which includes the facility fees where the concert will be, sound and lighting, as well as the musical acts.

The facility fees cost $8-15,000 and the sound and lighting costs $10-15,000, leaving approximately $40,000 for CAN to spend on the acts.

“The costs of facility fees and sound and lighting brings our budget down significantly,” said Leahy.

Since the group has less than is needed to cover the costs of the performances, students will be charged a ticket fee to attend the concert.

“We’re going to try to keep it as low as possible, probably around $15 for each student,” said Leahy.

A problem CAN had with booking Green Day or Weezer, besides the money, was that the campus wouldn’t have had a venue big enough for the bands to perform.

It is yet to be determined where the concert will be performed.

New Found Glory will be performing at the Webster Theatre in Hartford with Saves the Day, Hellogoodbye and Fireworks on Feb. 24.