Abandoning year-end concert progressive choice

March 19, 2007 —

Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Program Board was forced to either forego the traditional end-of-year show or bring in a last-minute act that may or may not have satisfied student desires. We applaud the organization for choosing the former, instead of subjecting the student population to a shotgun performance and in the process wasting a lot of money.

The organization had been in contact with a number of potential performers, and one of the candidates that emerged towards the end of the discussions was pop-rock act All-American Rejects. The group rejected the bid because of scheduling conflicts between members (apparently, one of the band members fancies himself a Hollywood type). While this may disappoint some, we feel that students may actually benefit from this in the long run.

Why?

The problem with the current model is best illustrated by the results: we didn't get a concert - at all. Big acts are expensive and difficult to book, and besides that, if all the programming money is spent in one shot, no one else gets a chance to play for SVSU's students. So if any students happened to dislike All-American Rejects, for example, too bad; all the money is gone.

The group would have cost SVSU students $60,000. That's a lot of double cheeseburgers, and ultimately the money would be better spent bringing in numerous smaller groups that cater to the wildly divergent interests of SVSU's student body.

So Program Board has made the right choice in canceling the end-of-the-year show, and perhaps it is time that it adopts a more progressive attitude towards student entertainment.

It has demonstrated a basic understanding that students seem to prefer frequency and diversity over a single, high-budget production. The organization's Coffeehouse Series is a step in the right direction, and the series' success helps to make evident the student demand for more frequent, small-scale entertainment events. Program Board's decision to cancel the year-end event frees up a large amount of funds that, if used carefully, could entertain students with different artistic and cultural events all year long.

This paper has criticized Program Board in the past, but we have also praised it on a number of occasions.

For instance, we approved of the organization's decision to survey the student body to better understand its musical preferences. While the students didn't respond to the survey like Program Board had hoped, that doesn't diminish the foward-thinking that was demonstrated.

This is a wise decision Program Board has made, and we should be thankful that our tuition dollars weren't squandered on a huge, overproduced event when small shows have proven so effective as attracting and engaging the diverse student body of SVSU.