Who's Coming this Year?
February 29, 2008
Concert Board, the organization responsible for organizing six music shows per year, including Spring Fling, works quietly behind the scenes and off stage. Yet with a budget of over $200,000, four times larger than that of the next-highest student group, it is fiscally the largest group on campus. Although Concert Board is most renowned event is undoubtedly Spring Fling, the event is only a small part of Concert Board’s yearly itinerary. They also organize annual Rock and Rap shows, Jumbo Jam, and the annual Battle of the Bands. Last semester, DJ Girl Talk performed to a crowd in Dewick for the hip-hop show while Saves the Day came for the rock show.
Concert Board is broken down into students in charge of publicity, security, hospitality, production assistants, and an executive board. The head of publicity is responsible for promoting the event to the Tufts community.
“Not all shows sell themselves like Girl Talk and Spring Fling do,” sophomore co-chair Alan Munkacsy said. “We’re looking for new ways to sell events. We’re currently talking with WMFO to get more publicity on the radio show.”
The head of security is responsible for making security arrangements and accommodations for the artists, while the head of hospitality is responsible for meeting the needs of the artist, which are laid out ahead of time in the contract.
“The production assistants have the largest job,” said Munkacsy, a former production assistant. “We pick the artists up from the airport personally and then hand them over to the hospitality heads.”
Concert Board meetings are open to the Tufts community, but few actually attend. “We’ve definitely seen more people at meetings,” junior co-chair Janette Hoffman said. “It’s not a very good turnout.”
With an e-list containing over one hundred names, but an active membership that hovers around 25, Concert Board faces the daunting challenge of sorting through hundreds of student-suggested artists to select those that are appropriate for a given event.
“We’re constantly eliminating names,” Munkacsy said, “the list gets shorter and shorter.”
After the Board initially suggests artists to perform, the list is trimmed based on a number of criteria. The most restrictive factor in choosing artists is performance fees. For Spring Fling, the Board has a limited amount of funds with which to pay for a headlining group, and one to two other artists.
The entire planning process, from the initial listing to the contract signing, varies greatly depending on the show. The rock and hip-hop shows at Dewick, for example, require far less planning than Spring Fling. Concert Board began brainstorming artists for the March 6th Jumbo Jam show over winter break, yet planning for Spring Fling artists began early last semester.
“It takes a good three months,” Munkacsy said of the Spring Fling planning process. “There’s a much shorter timeframe in planning for the other shows.”
Board members chip away at the list fairly quickly at first, eliminating artists who fall outside the event’s budget, which is well under $100,000, according to Munkacsy. “We just don’t have the money to get names like Kanye [West],” he said.
“The money that we were budgeted this year would likely only get us one headliner,” Munkascy said. “One of our main concerns is that we are not budgeted enough at the beginning. Hopefully the Senate sees this.”
The budget comes from the student activities fund and is allocated by the TCU Senate. According to Munkascy, Concert Board applies yearly for additional buffer funding to keep up with the rising cost of talent. Student organizations can apply for buffer funding, which is additional funding granted if the group believes that its original endowment will not cover its costs.
“It would be nicer to get more money,” Hoffman said. “We couldn’t pull Spring Fling off without the buffer funding. It would be a horrible show.”
Due to the magnitude of Spring Fling, its budget drastically exceeds that of the Dewick shows, whose artists “aren’t usually up to par with the mid-level Spring Fling artists,” according to Hoffman.
“The budget for these shows is much less than the Spring Fling budget,” she said. “We can’t get bands that everyone would see because of the budget.”
According to Pretty Polly Productions, the talent agency that the Board works with, it would cost $150,000 to have T.I., Lupe Fiasco, and Spoon perform at an event this year. With artists like 3 Doors Down and Foo Fighters commanding $125,000 and $200,000 respectively, headliners can quickly deplete a budget. However, not all artists are priced so highly. According Pretty Polly’s website, the price for Boys Like Girls, Lifehouse, Sean Kingston, Soulja Boy, and T-Pain falls under $40,000.
The Board also eliminates artists based on the liveliness of their music and how well they would fit the atmosphere of the event. Bands like Dashboard Confessional do not “fit the venue” because they are too mellow, according to Munkacsy. “We try and keep shows pretty upbeat.”
After the first round of eliminations, Board members suggest new artists and the eliminations process begins anew. However, even if the Board agrees upon a final list of appropriate artists that fit the budget, the artist’s availability can also be a limiting factor.
Concert Board works in conjunction with Howie Cusack, an agent at Pretty Polly. Cusack assists the Board with coordinating events such as Spring Fling and the Dewick shows.
“We show him the list of artists and we ask for his input,” Hoffman said. “He knows a lot about who performs well, and he’ll also tell us who’s available and what fee they’re asking for.”
After meeting with Cusack, Hoffman and Munkacsy bring the list of available artists back to the members to gauge their responses.
“We keep doing that until we find an artist who is feasible and will go over well,” Hoffman said.
The process for selecting artists for Spring Fling is similar to that of arranging Dewick performances, but with added secrecy. Artists for Spring Fling are announced during Battle of the Bands, held this year on April fifth. The winner of Battle of the Bands plays the opening act for Spring Fling. Last year’s performance was by Ezra Furman and the Harpoons.
Munkacsy was tight-lipped when discussing this year’s Spring Fling. “We’ve been talking to Cusack and have been looking into rock and rap headliners. No contracts have been signed and I really can’t say much more,” he said.
Spring Fling artists have traditionally been kept under lock and key, with the Board Members finding out the artists a week before the rest of the Tufts community. “The whole deal can fall apart if word gets out before contracts are signed,” Munkacsy said to explain the secrecy surrounding the event. “Artists can generally back out of performances, and we don’t want to get the Tufts community too excited before anything is set in stone.”
Despite all the hype surrounding what is arguably Tufts’ biggest event of the year, Spring Fling is actually a small part of Concert Board’s domain. “Sure, it takes the most planning, but [Concert Board] coordinates a number of other important events as well” asserts Munkacsy.
Jumbo Jam, one of the events organized by Concert Board, takes place on March 6th at Dewick. The jazz trio, Soulive, is performing. Soulive originated in the late 1990’s in upstate New York and has opened for The Rolling Stones, Dave Matthews Band, and John Mayer among others. Their music is known for its instrumentals and is very upbeat.
“To us, every show is as important as Spring Fling,” Munkacsy said. “Spring Fling is just the most physical one to the Tufts community.”