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| Chris Allen Performing Arts Director seeperformingarts@umd.edu |
The purpose of this blog is to help students and the general public better understand how SEE operates as an organization. I would first like to start off by making it entirely clear that Student Entertainment Events is a student organization. It is made up of students like me, who volunteer their time to organize events on campus for other students to enjoy. SEE is not some bureaucratic committee of campus big wigs who dole out funds to plan some events that the kids find ‘hip’. It is a small group of students who genuinely care about what the student body wants.
That being said,
SEE Presents: Bo Burnham is an event I proposed and planned as the
organization’s Performing Arts Director.
Initial planning for the show started in February when I began to
research performers that would offer a mix of comedy and performing arts. I was looking for a performer that was
available in the fall, talented, relevant and affordable, and began to pursue
Bo Burnham as an option.
Next, SEE
conducted a survey of Spring Comedy Show attendees as well as online
participants to gauge student interest in Bo.
More than 70 percent of survey respondents indicated that they would be
interested in seeing him perform on campus, which was remarkably favorable when
contrasted with other survey results. I
began to write up a proposal for the event and proposed it to the board in the
middle of April last year. The date I
chose was October 12, which I did not pull out of thin air.
October 12 was
the only weekend date within a range of three weeks for which Bo and the Grand
Ballroom were both available. I was
looking to book a weekend date because respondents on last year’s Art Attack
survey indicated that they were most willing to attend an event around 7 pm on
a weekend night. Again, we’re organizing
these events based on what students want.
As a fan of Maryland Basketball, I also considered that Maryland Madness
could potentially fall on the same date.
But I also considered this: the last four Maryland Madness events have
occurred on the third weekend of
October (Oct. 17 in 2008, Oct. 16 in 2009, and Oct. 15 in 2010, and Oct. 14 in
2011). I also considered that last
year’s event did not begin until 9:30 pm.
Given this information, it did not seem likely that October 12, which
falls on the second weekend of October, would conflict with this year’s
Maryland Madness. It also did not seem
likely that the two event times would conflict given last year’s later starting
time.
Unfortunately,
both the date and time of each event conflict this year. I realize this presented some students with
the choice of exclusively attending one event or the other, and this is not a
decision I wished students would have to make.
But, given the circumstances, that is the case. This is in no way a reflection of my
intentions or those of SEE as an organization; we made every effort to plan
this event at a time when the most number of students were available. Contracts were signed for this event at the
beginning of the summer and this left us no option to adjust or reschedule the
date and time of the event. Because SEE
executes written legal contracts for every event, we are not in a position to
make last minute accommodations, despite our interests.
I apologize for
any inconvenience and I hope this post makes clear the significant planning
that goes into not only this show, but every show SEE puts on. If you have any questions, please feel free
to contact me at seeperformingarts@umd.edu.
