FAQs about Art Attack XXIX

Amina Goheer
Concerts Director
seeconcerts@umd.edu

The grass is growing, flowers are blooming, allergy-stricken blokes are sneezing in your food and annoying high school students on tours are blocking your way to class. Spring has finally arrived! This means that Art Attack is just around the corner.   

First, I’d like to say thank you. Art Attack is a near-impossible feat considering that we are trying to program for 35K+ students. We understand that we’re not going to please every single person on campus, and as such, we expect to hear some kvetching about Art Attack. So last Monday when we announced Art Attack, we braced ourselves for the usual grouses and grumbles thrown our way. But this time, magically, y’all showed us some love and we do appreciate it! Thank you, UMD community, for letting us know when we’ve done you right. We’re here to please you, so it really tickles us when you like what we do.

While there’s a lot of love circulating about Art Attack XXIX, there are also a lot of good questions being asked. Here, I’m going to tackle some of the commonly asked questions. If you have more questions, e-mail me at seeconcerts@umd.edu and I’ll get around to them!

1. How is the Art Attack artist chosen?

Choosing an artist for Art Attack is a combination of many factors including student input, allocated funds and artist availability. We heavily weigh student input through survey research that is conducted throughout the year. Our intrepid Research Director collects data through online and paper surveys through Facebook, our list-serv, Twitter and at events like the First Look Fair and the SEE Homecoming Comedy Show. 

I then combed through the research results and saw first what genres are popular among students and second, what artists were feasible options for us given our budget. From there, I compiled an exhaustive list of potential artists that I brought to the SEE Executive Board. We discussed and discussed and discussed and discussed. And then a little more discussion was held. And once the discussion was officially done, I still got texts, emails and telegrams with more thoughts, ideas and considerations to factor in. Art Attack is no small deal in the SEE world. It’s our biggest event of the year, and we begin working on it months in advance.

Based on our budget and artist availability, a final survey with four names was given to the students, with B.o.B. listed as an option. As a board, we again looked at the research and finally put in a bid for the artist we thought would best serve the UMD campus.

As Concerts Director, my main focus for Art Attack was to bring a relevant act to campus. B.o.B., with a new album coming out on May 1, is certainly a relevant artist in 2012. His songs are heard all over the radio and his live shows are known to be fun and exciting. He met all of our criteria and not only is in-demand right now, but will certainly only be getting bigger in the near future. 

2. Why don’t you just raise the price of tickets and get us a Beyoncé-Jay Z (with opener Blue Ivy) concert?

It’s not that simple. First, and most importantly, SEE is a student organization, not a business. We’re not here to turn a profit; we’re here to serve the entire student population. We’re not going to let people sit out of our largest event because they can’t afford a $40 ticket. We understand that other schools do it, and that some of you might be willing to pay that much, but that’s not how we operate. We make our events – especially Art Attack – affordable and accessible to everyone, and that’s not going to change.

Also, if you want to see the Knowles-Carter family perform, you can easily hop on the Metro and see them at the Verizon Center. Students at Penn State or Ohio State don’t have that luxury, and as such, their programming boards have very different directives than SEE. While other schools might get bigger names, keep in mind those students often pay much more than we charge for concerts.

Another factor that we have to contend with is that there is only one available date for Art Attack each year. This means that if an artist is already booked or cannot perform on that date (usually the first Friday in May), then they are out of the running for Art Attack.

Eric, our trustworthy Comedy Director who brought you the likes of Aziz Ansari and Seth Meyers, also does a great job at discussing why our ticket prices are the way they are in his blog post – http://www.thisissee.blogspot.com/2012/03/thoughts-behind-seth-meyers.html

3. I thought this year was a “rock year.”  Why do we have another hip-hop act?

The rock-rap-rock commandment is a slight myth. While it’s worked out that in the past three years Art Attack has gone rap-rock-rap, this is not a magical formula that SEE must abide by. What we do abide by is our mission, which states that we must program diversely. As such, we do our best to vary the musical styles and acts we bring to campus each year. This past fall we had a rock concert featuring Ra Ra Riot and our smaller spring show, Terpstock, will feature The Ataris on April 21.

From a programming standpoint, rap and rock are very different. Currently, rock is harder to program for since recognizable rock bands like Coldplay or The Black Keys are extremely expensive and difficult to get. Bands in our price range unfortunately aren’t in demand on campus. There happen to be more rap options for us right now (doesn’t mean we didn’t try our hardest to bring in a rock act). Our priority is to get a relevant, talented, fun artist who will perform well and satisfy campus demand – regardless of genre. With B.o.B, we saw those qualities and went for it.    

4. How do I buy tickets?

At www.umdtickets.com or the Stamp Ticket Office. Tickets are $8 for the UMD community (with a valid UMD ID) and $25 for non-UMD guests. 

As always, we appreciate the feedback (and the love)! We’re a student programming board here to make you happy, so please keep letting us know how we’re doing and how we can improve.

The Thoughts behind Seth Meyers

Eric Feldman
Comedy Director
seecomedy@umd.edu

My name is Eric Feldman. I am a senior engineering major at the University of Maryland and as part of my campus involvement, I am the comedy director of Student Entertainment Events. As Comedy Director, I selected Aziz Ansari for the Homecoming Comedy Show and Seth Meyers for our Spring Comedy Show. 

Since I was a freshman, the SEE Spring Comedy Show has been held in the Grand Ballroom. Freshman year, SEE brought Zach Galifianakis. I decided to go 20 minutes before the show started and I had a great time. My sophomore year, SEE brought Dave Attell and Jo Koy, two very successful Spring Comedy Show events that were held in the Grand Ballroom. Last year, we brought Gabriel Iglesias. We priced tickets at five dollars and held the show in the Grand Ballroom. The show sold out and everyone visibly had a great time as Iglesias performed for an hour longer than anyone had expected.

We have now arrived at the Spring 2012 Comedy Show and I would like to share with you all my side of the story and what led me to proposing Seth Meyers. For starters, the Spring Comedy Show has always been placed in the Grand Ballroom. So it is no surprise that I associate this show in my mind with the Grand Ballroom and thus, when I proposed the event, the Grand Ballroom was the natural venue of choice. Second, I had the unique opportunity to book Seth Meyers for our Spring Comedy Show; an opportunity that students would be overjoyed with—and I was thrilled. While The Diamondback is correct and Seth Meyers tied for first place on our previous comedy survey, I just could not pass up the opportunity to bring Seth Meyers to campus. He was in our budget, popular and would bring with him a great show. I didn’t feel that it was right to bring a less popular comedian and put him/her in the Grand Ballroom, leaving many potentially unsatisfied. I do want to apologize for bringing someone that people wanted to see according to our research and putting him in too small of a venue. But I wanted to assure everyone that I was doing the best job that I could do with the budget and opportunities that I had.

Our job is to please the students. After all, I am a student and no different than any one of you. I am trying to please everyone to the best of my ability. So why would I do anything that would intentionally make people upset by depriving them the opportunity to see their favorite comedian? I wouldn’t. 

The truth is, as an organization housed in the Stamp Student Union, utilizing venues in the Stamp, such as the Grand Ballroom, is very economically feasible for us. Special grants for the Homecoming Comedy Show are what allow us to house the show in Cole Field House. However, due to the costs of the stage, lights, sound, video, security and more when we produce an event in Cole, it is difficult for us to afford it for any other comedy shows for the year. If I wanted to put Seth Meyers in Cole Field House, we wouldn’t have been able to bring The Second City in the fall, and we wouldn’t have been able to bring another comedy event in April to be released at a later date. Our mission, as stated on our website, is to program diversely throughout the year. To us, that does not mean two large shows, it means providing the campus community with several diverse shows. 

Economic majors may agree that charging more for tickets now will make up for the difference in the production costs associated with a larger venue. And you’re right. However, SEE operates with strict financial and spending guidelines, with few exceptions. As such, we must have the money in our programming line before we can book the talent, venue, etc. That means that charging students more money now for tickets will help us for future shows but will not for this show. This is partially why we raised ticket prices slightly from last year, so that we can ever so slowly build our programming budget to one day be able to bring big talent at big venues all while still fulfilling our mission. Additionally, the talent cost is dependent on the size of venue they are performing in, so SEE would not only experience a jump in production costs bringing Seth to Cole, but also a jump in talent fees.

As much as many of you would like us to charge 30 dollars a ticket now and place the show in Cole, we also recognize that not everyone can afford to spend 30 dollars on entertainment and that students deserve to pay a fair price for tickets. The complaint that tickets are too cheap is selfish and unfair to students on a budget. People complain when tickets are too expensive, when tickets are too cheap, when the venue is too small, when the venue is too big, when the performer is too unknown and when the performer is too recognizable. We want to make you, the students, happy, but it is difficult when the feedback is unconstructive and without research and understanding.

My name is Eric Feldman and I am senior at the University of Maryland. I have done the best I can as Comedy Director for SEE, and on behalf of SEE, I hope that by working together we can develop a mutual understanding of the programming process and continue to bring great acts to campus.