After a long road filled with negotiations, surveys and complications, the concert coordination committee of Geneseo’s Activities Commission has secured a main artist for this year’s Spring Concert: Mac Miller will headline the concert, which is set for April 12. AC Concerts Coordinator junior Juli Grygier also said that the committee is currently working on a contract agreement with a “fairly large-scale opener.” AC has yet to finalize the contract with the agency, however, and an announcement is expected within two weeks.
AC uses a series of student surveys to determine options for artists; however, this year was the first time that it incorporated a third survey. Each survey serves a different purpose and helps move AC closer to a final decision. Students nominated any three artists and roughly 1,500 people responded.
Student Association provides a budget of $85,000 for the concert, and while many students’ top three choices were unreasonable in terms of cost, Grygier said they wanted to get a solid idea of what the student body’s ideal concert could look like for comparison.
This allowed AC to narrow the choices for the second survey. The top 30 artists from the nominations that were within the price range were offered to students, who could pick any seven artists. About 2,800 students responded in that survey – nearly half of the campus.
After the second survey, AC started to reach out to artists. It made several offers and talked with several agencies about possible contracts. Complications with some of the top selected artists, however, prompted AC to consider a third survey.
Members of AC considered how students could recast their votes given that some artists now had to be removed from consideration due to extraneous circumstances.
“There were things that we couldn’t have known at the time of the second survey. So we thought it was only fair to do the third,” Grygier said. The third survey received 2,300 responses.
AC considered several other artists, such as Passion Pit, Ellie Goulding and The Black Keys, but each came with its own issues that prevented the school from moving forward with contracts.
While Miller came in sixth on the second survey, he came in first in the third. Ultimately, Grygier felt very confident in the selection of Miller due to the overall results of the survey.
“In the third survey, the top artists were interestingly all rap artists. So that made us more confident that we were going in the right direction because even if you didn’t vote for him, you may have voted for someone in a similar genre,” she said.
Because of this, Grygier said that AC did not pursue a budget increase.
“We actually didn’t do a budget increase this year, even though they have in past years, and I think we were really able to do what we wanted without one,” she said. “This was really because the amount of money it would cost to get someone else would almost double our budget.”
As with the spring 2013 concert, Miller’s performance will also take place in Kuhl Gymnasium, which can hold 2,700 students. An outside venue was considered; however, with the uncertainty of weather and logistical concerns, AC opted to stay with Kuhl Gym.
Tickets will go on sale Saturday March 1 and are available exclusively for students for two weeks. The price will stay the same as last year at $20 per student ticket.