Newsfeed
Printer-Friendly ModeGood entertainment requires student input
October 22, 2007 —
Costly indeed.
Even though the Plain White T's concert was something short of a stunning success, Program Board put together what it concluded would be the best big show for SVSU students on Tuesday, and it's hard to fault them for the outcome of the event. Students just didn't let them know what they wanted. And to top it all off, it seems as though the Coffeehouse series will be cancelled, too.
Last semester, the group polled students asking what kind of music they like and what they'd like to see. The poll's results were hardly representative of the larger student body, since only a few hundred people took it, despite mass e-mails and a Vanguard editorial urging students to participate.
So it'd be totally unfair to call the Plain White T's show a failure. Well over 1,000 tickets were sold, and as our story clearly illustrates, the people who did go had a great time. Most bands around here would consider that an unqualified success. But that's just the problem: Plain White T's isn't just a local band. The group is a pop act that's received heavy rotation on commercial radio across the nation, and are currently on tour with Fallout Boy. And finally, it cost Program Board about $32,500 to bring the band in.
Ouch. That's a lot of cheddar. Now Program Board was probably (hopefully) not expected to profit from the event. That would be unrealistic. The point was to provide entertainment to students - the best thing about Program Board is that it is allowed to operate on a loss, because what it does is perceived as well worth the money, by the administration and students.
But we think it's time that the organization reconsiders its entertainment options. The Vanguard has editorialized on this before, because we also feel that what Program Board does is well worth student dollars, but there are indeed a lot of those dollars at stake, and that they should be spent as responsibly as possible.
The Coffeehouse series is a good start, and it could be taken much farther. Finding local talent to perform a straight-up concert every other week, or even every week, shouldn't be a problem. The Tri-Cities area has an active music scene, and the Multi-Purpose Room is tailor-made for concerts. Cardinal Sins' Slamorama is a great example of what Program Board could do, and given the latter's considerably larger budget, a bi-weekly Slamorama seems incredibly reasonable.
Local bands aren't going to ask for $30,000, either. A lot of groups would be more than happy to play for free. Traveling bands will ask for some compensation, for certain, but nowhere near as much as Plain White T's took home. An expensive show might cost $3,000, but even then, that would allow Program Board to put on at least a dozen shows a year.
And we shouldn't forget to mention that hosting more shows allows for more diverse types of music - and perhaps that's the real reason Plain White T's didn't go over as well as Program Board expected. This is a diverse university, the students of which have diverse tastes in music. Expecting over half of the student body (7,000 of which are commuters) to be into Plain White T's enough to spend 18 bones might have been a bit optimistic. What about the kids who like rap? Country? Metal? Electronic music?
Those kids would be better served by bringing in numerous smaller bands over a longer period of time. Those shows aren't going to draw 5,000 people. But they won't be expected to. And the burden the students shoulder won't be nearly as great if any particular show goes belly-up, since it won't put everyone 30 grand in the hole.