Jheno Aiko, Chrisette Michele, Azealia Banks, RUBBLEBUCKET, Rita Ora, Dev and Estelle are the art- ists included in the 2014 Spring Concert survey, released on Jan. 17.
Vice President of Programming Yaritza Diaz said she wanted to bring in a female artist because the school hasn’t had one in five years.
“I’m not bringing artists based on my liking so much, it’s more on the fact that I want to bring something dif- ferent that hasn’t been done here be- fore,” Diaz said.
Diaz ran for Vice President of Programming on the platform that she would try and bring in a female art- ist. She had it on her flyers and some people don’t remember that, Diaz said.
Student Association (SA) Presi- dent Manuel Tejada said the budget for the concert is approximately $80,000. $50,000 of it is used to pay the artist and the remaining money is used for the production of the concert and pro- viding food.
Diaz said the process of picking an artist is done by the production com- mittee’s board of 10 people, which is composed of five senators and five members of the council of organiza- tions.
The committee met every other week during the fall semester and were each assigned a different genre of mu- sic. Once five artists were chosen for each genre, the committee had a week to listen to the music and decide their opinion on the artists prior to a vote that narrowed it down to 10 artists. Once the list was cut down to 10 art- ists, it was then shaved down again to seven artists before it was sent out to the students.
This is different than what previous vice presidents of programming would do, Diaz said. Diaz said they would ei- ther come up with the list themselves or just choose music from one genre.
Director of Student Activities and Union Services Mike Patterson said SA Productions (SAP) checks to see if artists have done shows at colleges in the past as a first line of interest. They
don’t take the size of the schools where the artist has performed in the past into consideration because the majority of artists don’t know the differences be- tween schools, besides the large insti- tutions.
Diaz said the options for pick- ing a female artist are limited because popular artists are either extremely overpriced, or underpriced and nobody knows who they are.
Patterson said if students aren’t happy with the choices on the survey they shouldn’t keep their opinions to themselves. Instead, they should be contacting SAP and senate to let them know how they feel.
“I think that the SAP were think- ing thoughtfully in terms of trying to diversify the entertainment that comes every year,” Patterson said.
Tejada said not everyone is going to agree on the gender and genre of the artist, but it’s important that the school is diverse and branches out to all as- pects of the community.
The survey received mixed reac- tions, Diaz said.
“At first I kind of took it person- al,” Diaz said. “At the end of the day I can’t get angry because it’s not a per- sonal thing. I’m doing my job. I have to deal with the fact that I can’t please everybody.”
Third-year accounting and finance double major Kelly Pry said she wasn’t pleased with the choices because she has never heard of any of the artists and believes now she won’t get her hopes up that a popular artist will per- form.
“I don’t have time to sit down and listen to a list of artists to decide which one I would like to hear perform, when I ultimately don’t believe that my opin- ion will affect the decision,” Pry said. “None of my top choices have been picked so far so I don’t think it would matter too much either way.”
Third-year communications ma- jor Ilana Kantor said she liked Azealia Banks was one of the options on the survey, but at the same time would have liked to have seen a wider selec- tion of artists that she knows.