Flo Rida to headline 2026 Spring Fling concert

Thousands of students will flock to Penn Park next month to watch rapper and singer Flo Rida perform at this year’s Spring Fling concert.

The event is set to take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 17, followed by a Daytime Fling carnival the next day. The show’s opener has yet to be announced.

Penn’s Social Planning and Events Committee revealed the concert lineup — along with the “retro” theme for the Daytime Fling event — at a launch party in Houston Hall on Friday afternoon. The party featured a student DJ competition, where attendees voted on a student performer to open Spring Fling.

Flo Rida’s 2007 single “Low” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Since then, he has sold over 80 million records worldwide and collaborated with various artists, including will.i.am, Lil Wayne, and Lady Gaga.

Nia Katarina, a junior in the College and the vice president of SPEC, told The Daily Pennsylvanian that her team has been “working tirelessly for five months” to coordinate with various stakeholders and University departments — including Penn’s Division of Public Safety and the Medical Emergency Response Team — to plan the concert.

“We’ve been working with Gotham, which is the talent agency that linked us up to the managers of the talent,” she said. “We also work with athletics for Penn Park.”

SPEC hosts the annual event each spring, but canceled the concert in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Across 53 iterations of the event, SPEC has brought several performing artists to take center stage at Penn —including Metro Boomin, Chance the Rapper, Flo Milli, and Kesha. Last year, Rapper and singer Sexyy Red headlined the concert alongside singer-songwriter Jay Sean.

In 2024, the performance drew over 10,000 students to Penn Park, where some attendees reported safety concerns due to inadequate crowd control management.

Tickets are available to anyone ages 18 or older. Penn students can attend for $30 with a University ID, while public tickets are priced at $45. According to Katarina, Penn First Plus students will have the opportunity to receive subsidized tickets.

The free Daytime Fling event on April 18 will include giveaways, food, and student performances.

College junior and SPEC President David García described the planning process for the daytime activities as “a really fun experience,” adding that “our main constraint is trying to fit everything on the field.”

Katarina also highlighted that “none of the volunteers, or even us, are getting paid.”

“We’re all doing this all because of passion,” she said.

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