I’m not going to see Third Eye Blind this weekend. And that’s not just because they’re a washed-up, no-talent, excuse for music. No, the real reason I’m not going is because I think it’s a waste of money.
Program Board has continually been criticized by members of the student body for their efforts in staging the Spring Concert. This is patently unfair. Program Board has actually done an excellent job this year – accountable, transparent, aggressive, and effective in getting our top choice. No, people use Program Board as a scapegoat because they are upset with the musical taste of their peers. In his Indicator article, Sean Doocy ’11 is the latest campus revolutionary to vent his frustrations about Program Board. I’d like to ask Mr. Doocy a question: would you still be complaining about the system if we brought your favorite band (Wilco) to campus?
My guess is that he would not be. So even though I agree with Doocy that 3EB is a wholly pathetic choice (for proof, note that Williams is getting them as well), I don’t believe that the solution to a better Spring Concert is a new committee filled with “serious music fans”, posters all over campus, or a new voting system that somehow will make it even easier to vote.
People are bound to be unhappy because you just can’t make everyone happy. No more than 288 students ever voted for 3EB. In fact, a substantial portion of the student body won’t even vote within the genre of rock music. We are spending $60,000 for the music and roughly half that for the cost of production – a total expense of $90,000. But no matter how much money we spend, some people will be dissatisfied.
I’m going to propose an alternate system. Try it out – just for kicks. See how it feels.
Let’s have two concerts – one in the fall, and one in the spring. One of them would be hip-hop/rap/r&b, the other rock or indie. No pop music allowed. Instead of hiring some exorbitantly priced band that was nationally popular ten years ago, let’s get two talented but far cheaper local groups on the scene now. Let’s just hire from New England or even stay in the Pioneer Valley; Boston has more music than one could imagine and a bunch of great bands are based in Northampton alone. The total cost (talent + production) for each concert shouldn’t exceed $20,000. Let’s hear new music, give local talent a boost and get two great – and probably more intimate – concerts in return.
With a total of $40,000 dedicated to getting music on campus, we have up to $50,000 left over at our disposal. Instead of buying the drummer from 3EB his third house in Beverly Hills, let’s do something good with that money. Let’s give back to the community we live in. I know that AAS has some type of policy that all student money must go to students; I know there are a bunch of issues that would need to be worked out. But what if members of the senior class were able to vote on where that money would go? The local Habitat for Humanity could build a needy family a home. The Amherst Survival Center could get that expansion of space it so desperately needs. In this utility-maximizing world we live in, that money could make a very real difference in the lives of people less fortunate than we.
Let’s say that the $90,000 was not already collected – that the students attending the concert had to pay cash to finance it. Over 1300 students at Amherst have reserved tickets for 3EB. Some won’t go; some will scalp their tickets for a profit. But even if 1300 of us to decide to attend, $90,000 spread among 1300 people is almost $70 per person. With ticket sales to the Five Colleges and the general public, we could reasonably cut down ticket prices to $50 per person. Would you pay $50 in cash to see Third Eye Blind? How about $30? $10?
Maybe you would, but 300 of us won’t even see them for free. Let’s reconsider our priorities and be responsible with our money. Let’s stop wasting it on things we don’t need and especially on things we don’t want.
15 responses so far ↓
1 eschultz10 (eschultz10) // Apr 24, 2008 at 12:30 am
Good stuff Dave. It seems like multiple concerts would keep people the happiest by covering a range of genres, but people will always complain no matter what. But seriously, imagine what we could do with that extra $50,000.
2 Meredith Case (mcase10) // Apr 28, 2008 at 3:11 pm
I agree that using all that money for the Spring Concert is probably a waste, but I think the point is that the student body wanted to use that money to host a fun event for everyone on campus. If you think that the money could have been spent on something that more people would enjoy, or would enjoy more than they did the Concert, I think you’ve got us. Otherwise, arguing that we should have donated the money is noble but beside the point. There should be other funds delegated for that. We wanted to use that money on us, and the problem is that we couldn’t agree on what that meant.
3 Dave Ullman (dullman10) // Apr 28, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Nope. If you recall, we were originally allotted $40,000 for the Spring Concert. I’m fine with keeping that fund dedicated to concerts. However, Program Board asked to be allotted an extra $50,000 to bring in an extra big name. It’s this decision that I take issue with.
It’s true that the student body (or rather, 457 students) voted to give them an extra $50,000 for the concert. But there was no alternative as to where that money could go. It seemed as if the choice was - “Allocate money for the concert” or “Don’t allocate it, and never see it again.” Who wouldn’t vote for the extra 5ok given this choice?
Thus, I don’t think it’s beside the point. That 50k need not necessarily be spent on “enjoyment.” Let’s actually have the discussion about where it should go and decide where our priorities actually lie.
4 Meredith Case (mcase10) // Apr 28, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I didn’t vote for the extra 50k given that choice, and 257 other students voted against the measure with me. And I’m pretty sure we weren’t just confused, and we weren’t consenting to never seeing the money again. Obviously we believed that even no clear alternative was better than frittering our money away on the Spring Concert.
But the majority of students that voted approved of the allocation, so I think that suggests that they wanted to use that money for “enjoyment.” The better question, and I think the one you are hinting at, is if the people who voted against the 50k would have voted for “enjoyment” as well, if that didn’t necessarily mean allocating it to the Spring Concert. I bet they would have, but I could be wrong. In any case, conflating voting against the additional money with a desire to donate it to charity is at best a stretch.
Regardless, I think we both agree that a public debate or clearer options on the alternative uses of that money would have resolved this argument.
5 Dave Ullman (dullman10) // Apr 28, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Certainly some people would prefer to see that money go to hiring 3EB rather than to people who actually need it. If we make that decision - well, I guess that’s fine - although I think it’s disappointing.
But my point was that this valuation of the costs versus the benefits of 3EB was skewed because students do not feel the impact of the $50k. If the students attending had to actually finance the concert out of pocket, I’d bet that few would think it worth the price.
That’s why I’d like to encourage students to truly think about that money, and how it could otherwise be spent.
6 Emily Moin (emoin09) // Apr 29, 2008 at 9:55 am
I think that looking at this situation like a problem set for Ec11 brings us pretty quickly to the conclusion that the only way to improve the choice of artist for spring concert is to institute a ticket price, even for Amherst students.
That said, I hear the concert was pretty good this year (I didn’t go), which is bittersweet for me — I’m glad it turned out well, but I would hate to see this happy outcome get flipped into an argument for more money next year a la “The reason spring concert was so much better is because we had $90k! We need that money again!!”
7 Dave Ullman (dullman10) // Apr 29, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Well, Williams charged $15 a ticket, so the precedent is certainly there. However, we have a policy here that tries to even the socioeconomic playing field by stipulating that no student should ever have to pay to attend a College event. I think that’s a good policy and I’m not sure I’d want to see it be disregarded for this purpose. But it certainly would address the problem that I’m talking about.
8 jware11 (jware11) // Apr 29, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I’m one of those people who voted for the extra $50,000 not really knowing what I was doing, not realizing it would come from limited AAS funds and not the college’s bottomless coinpurse. Big mistake.
My preference now? Scrap the concert altogether. Even within the realm of student enjoyment, the AAS has much better things it could be doing with an extra $90k. The Budgetary Committee is constantly having to turn down clubs’ funding requests because they just don’t have the cash.
9 Aaron Nathan (anathan10) // Apr 29, 2008 at 11:38 pm
I didn’t vote for the $50,000, because I’m generally grumpy (and bitter at Wilco’s exclusion), but I have to admit that I have fun at spring concerts, and I had fun at this one. That said, any idiot in a top hat spouting nonsense about blood dripping from his finger or pen will entertain me if I can sing along to “How’s it Going to Be” and pat myself on the back for knowing “God of Wine.” It may be that the spring concert’s corruption by the tasteless masses is a necessary evil in the interests of people having a begrudgingly good time. (Wait, tasteless masses? Then where does taste come from? If only four people like Wilco around here, how good can they be?)
10 Ricardo Bilton (rbilton10) // Apr 30, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Aaron,
Though I’m not sure whether to take your final sentence at face value, but I will comment on it anyway.
It isn’t really a question of whether Wilco is a better band than Third Eye Blind, nor is it really a question of tastes. More people like Third Eye Blind because more people have heard of them. I am certain that if Wilco had been on MTV years ago, they would have a large fanbase as well, but the fact of the matter is, despite the various commercials that they have lent their work to, they are still pretty obscure.
That being said, I share your bitterness towards Wilco’s exclusion. Being that they are one of my favorite bands, and that I usually exhibit the typical independent music-listener’s disdain for anything popular, I was a but bummed that they weren’t the ones playing in LeFrak.
11 Max Suechting (msuechting11) // Apr 30, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I don’t really have anything meaningful to say, but I would just like to make it known that I can think of at least twenty people that voted for the money, enjoyed the concert, and like Third Eye Blind, including myself. I think the overarching problem here IS with taste, because (let’s face it) if your favorite band was coming, I doubt any of us would be seriously complaining. But I think the suggestions Dave originally made - to do two or three concerts with various artists - was a pretty good idea.
12 Aaron Nathan (anathan10) // Apr 30, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Ricardo,
I think we agree. I was genuinely asserting that good taste is whatever people say it is. It’s a shame that Wilco wasn’t on MTV…or is it? Isn’t one of the reasons we take pride in liking them that they don’t get on MTV and don’t get invited to LeFrak (known in Pop/Rock circles as “the Gold Standard.” I made that up).
13 caravan70 (dpshupe92) // May 1, 2008 at 10:07 am
$40,000? Jeez. Wilco would have been decent, but I’ve seen them probably 10 times.
I remember when UMass had their version of the Spring Concert back in 1990… the headliner was Bob Dylan, and the supporting act was De La Soul. They didn’t show up, so Dylan played a double set… after negotiating for more money. And I think all of that cost them around $15,000 (a figure I got from one of the organizers).
What does it take these days to get a decent act? I was looking at the UMass web site where you can vote for a choice for their Spring Concert, or whatever they call it these days… the only band I really wanted to see (again) was Rilo Kiley. Is it even possible to put a good show on today at a college campus?
14 Jeff Gang (jgang09) // May 4, 2008 at 11:13 am
Possibly relevant addition: AAS voting results from Nov. 15, 2007.
http://www.amherst.edu/~aas/voting/results/1195102800/
I remember finding the wording a bit misleading - the option “1 - Do not give the Program Board any funding” should have made clear that the PB would still get 40k, right?
Like others, I’m mostly bitter that our money wasn’t “better” spent on something I’d enjoy more. Selfish, I suppose.
15 Dave Ullman (dullman10) // May 4, 2008 at 1:07 pm
I agree, Jeff. That is certainly misleading. The situation was not clearly explained - at the very least the option should have been “Do not give the Program Board any ADDITIONAL funding.”
You must log in to post a comment.