Program Board responds to music show commentary

submitted by Program Board Leadership Team

February 20, 2006 —

Please allow us to voice our concerns regarding the commentary "University should host more, smaller music shows," printed on February 13.

The Leadership Team of Program Board, the student organization charged with bringing entertainment to campus, agrees that there should be more such shows on campus; however, each year we are allocated a set amount of money to use toward a concert. We would like to put on more concerts for the SVSU student body, but it is not feasible with our current budget. We would have to receive an increase in our allocation, taken from student tuition fees, to hold more concerts and other musical activities.

Pertaining to the Ludacris show, there are some details that could have been more thoroughly researched. The commentary mentioned that Ludacris took 80 percent of all profit of the merchandise sales and all the profit from record sales. While this is what the contract between Ludacris and SVSU stated (a typical concert contract clause with any artist), Ludacris did not bring merchandise or CDs to sell. The actual monetary total that was spent from the SVSU Program Board's account for the Ludacris concert was less than amounts spent on other programs hosted that year; and the Ludacris concert served more students than those programs combined! The Ludacris concert last year was the largest concert SVSU has ever hosted; a complete Ryder sellout.

In addition, we contacted Calvin College's Director of the Student Activities Office, Ken Heffner, when we read the outrageous totals provided. We found out that Calvin does do about 25 concerts a year, but only one of those is a major concert. This major concert is held in their field house and seats 4,200 students. They are allocated $50,000 for these concerts, but actually spend over three times that amount to put on the event. Because of ticket sales, that money is returned to the organization, just as it was with last year's Ludacris show. Program Board's account was not $85,000 smaller after the concert. In fact, the total amount expended after revenue was over 90 percent less than that.

Seating fewer than 5,000 people, the main concert venue on our campus is the Ryder Center, which has been proven to be a wonderful place to host concerts. The next largest venue on campus that would be able to sustain a concert (outside of the Cardinal Gym -which is not the ideal concert location) is the Performing Arts Theatre, which only seats 526 people. With no mid-sized venue capable of holding a concert, it is quite difficult to host a successful and cost-efficient mid-sized show.

When comparing Program Board to another programming organization, consider including a Program Board representative in the discussion to assure that the information or opinion provided is as accurate as possible.

Ashley Talley James Khlaif Eric Skibbe Shelly Hartwig Carrie Spengler Crystal Dillard Program Board Leadership Team