Just before break, Vox reported how students voted for artists the Georgetown Programming Board could potentially bring to play at our Spring Kick-Off Concert. Third Eye Blind got the most first place votes, but ultimately, students ranked Lupe Fiasco highest overall, based on GPB’s tallying system.
So break out your grade school summer mixes—3eb is coming to campus to pluck your nostalgic heartstrings. That is, if they can find us. Some poor intern listed Washington as the state where the concert will take place, and 600 New Jersey Avenue NW—the Law Center—as the event address.
Back in January, the Georgetown Programming Board sent out an e-mail asking you to rank eight different artists it might be able to bring to campus for the Spring Kick-Off Concert. Now, Alexandra Kisielewski, the GPB Concert Chair, has compiled your votes and shared them with Vox.
Kisielewski explained that because GPB conducted the survey with a ranking system, they tallied the results to reflect how they were ordered overall. Since a first place vote had more weight than a fifth place vote, the highest-ranked artist may not have gotten the most votes for first place. Here are what the results were after that calculation:
Lupe Fiasco – 23.1 percent
Kid Cudi – 22.6 percent
Third Eye Blind – 22.3 percent
Arctic Monkeys – 16.6 percent
SuperMashBros – 15.3 percent
But here’s how you marked your #1 pick for the Spring Concert:
Third Eye Blind – 30 percent
Kid Cudi – 28 percent
Lupe Fiasco – 22 percent
Arctic Monkeys – 11 percent
SuperMashBros – 10 percent
It is unclear how many students voted. Flaming Lips, Talib Kweli, and Dirty Projectors were the three artists who didn’t crack the top five in either category. (Guess we couldn’t convince you that Flaming Lips is awesome).
“We’re hoping to begin advertising after Spring break and as soon as all of the contracting has been finalized we will be able to release the artist’s name,” Kisielewski wrote in an e-mail.
The first Georgetown University Student Association Budget Summit was a real doozey, lasting from 10 a.m. all the way to 8 p.m. on Sunday. During the meeting, the advisory boards presented their budget proposals to the Finance and Appropriations Committee of the GUSA Senate, which has taken on the role of the Funding Board.
There wasn’t a whole lot of deliberation among senators since the meeting was mainly focused on presentations and actual allocation will take place later this week, but there were some interesting clues—particularly regarding SAC—about how budgets may look next year.
First came the proposals from the Georgetown Program Board and the Center for Social Justice for $45,000 and $64,000 respectively. Both proposals were well-received by the committee, but CSJ’s request for 46 percent more funding than last year faced opposition. Chairman of the Finance and Appropriations Committee Nick Troiano (COL ’11) made clear that since there was $55,000 more in requests this year than in available funds, some groups would not receive all the money they requested.
“We want to give [CSJ] more money, but I would doubt they’ll receive their full request,” Senator Colton Malkerson (COL ’13), who sits on the FinApp committee said.
The next budget proposal, $25,000 for the Performing Arts Advisory Council, did not go as smoothly. The FinApp Committee felt PAAC’s budget proposal lacked specifics and didn’t make clear how the requested money would be spent.
The Georgetown Programming Board—the same people who brought you T-Pain—sent an e-mail to the student body last night asking for Georgetown’s input on the Spring Kickoff Concert.
While the Voice doesn’t necessarily agree that an April 10 concert can “kickoff” the Spring, we’re intrigued by some of the options they’re offering. Vox has been trying unsuccessfully to contact members of GPB for a few weeks now, so it’s unclear if GPB concert planners have looked into the feasibility of booking any of these acts. Regardless, if you’re looking for someone to guide your musical sensibilities—or argue with in the comments section—the Voice’s veteran music critic Dan Cook has ranked musical acts in the order he would like see GPB try to bring them to Georgetown:
1) Flaming Lips
Let’s make a short list of elements that the Flaming Lips usually incorporate into their live shows these days:
1. An enormous digital screen that projects a hypnotic vagina at the onset of the show
2. Wayne Coyne’s inflatable, crowd-surf-ready hamster ball
3. Confetti cannons
4. Colorful, beach-ball-esque orbs
5. Lasers
6. “The world’s biggest mirrored ball”
7. Fog
8. Oh, and music
Just take a look at the clip above, and I’ll spare you the details about their critically-acclaimed discography and a groundbreaking career that spans nearly three decades.
When the Funding Board reconvened yesterday after the board’s contentious meeting two weeks ago, it approved the GUSA Fund once GUSA agreed to amend its request of $30,000 and instead ask for $26,000 from the general Funding Board reserve. GUSA now plans to provide $4,000 from its own operating budget, pending Senate approval.
Advisory board members indicated that GUSA investing some of its own money would be a show of good faith since advisory board members were concerned about investing such a large sum in a new funding structure. Last meeting, all six advisory boards voted down the GUSA Fund. After this meeting’s amendment, the five advisory board members voted yes, with only GPB Chair Matt Brennan (COL ‘10) voting no. Brennan had said he wanted the Funding Board to allocate even less to start up the Fund and then reconsider how much the Fund needed in the spring.
The Funding Board came to its decision after Erika Cohen-Derr, Director of Student Programs, encouraged the group to seek “consensus based opinion” instead of a unanimous decision. GUSA members wanted to move forward in the meeting, but advisory boards reiterated the need for more discussion before the group moved to a vote.
“At every funding board meeting I’ve been to before this, after each proposal, we actually talk about it, talk about changing it, and try to figure out a proposal that’s acceptable to everybody, whereas this year, we’ve voted and waited 10 days,” said Club Sports Chair Nick Calta (COL ‘10).
Leaders from all six advisory boards voted against creating the GUSAFund at a Funding Board meeting today, but the Finance and Appropriations Committee will still be able to pass the GUSA Fund through the Funding Board without their approval.
At the meeting, advisory board leaders voiced concerns that GUSA would not have the knowledge to run the GUSA Fund. They asked what kind of experience the GUSA Fund members would have, how GUSA would know if events were duplicities of events that already existed, and how the GUSA Fund would handle clubs that went over budget.
GUSA senators also learned at the meeting that the Funding Board has $51,412 in reserve, unlike $69,687 like they had previously believed. The GUSA Fund plans to draw $30,000 from that reserve, meaning the GUSA Fund will now require more than half.
GUSA Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ‘12—LXR) said the GUSA executive will be looking for GUSA fund members who can bring both funding experience and club management experience. In regards to event duplicities, Finance and Appropriations Chair Nick Troiano (COL ’11—Village A, A-D) replied that because of access to benefits, advisory boards would still need to approve official club-sponsored events before the GUSA Fund could allocate funds.
Advisory board members suggested this would make an already tedious process even more bureaucratic.
“Clubs are looking for funds, and they’re willing to jump through hoops to get it,” GUSA Chief of Staff Tim Swenson replied. “While we’re trying to make it as streamlined as possible …. this is our way of addressing that temporarily.” [Edited at 10:21 p.m.]
It looks like once again, we’ll have to wait until the spring for GPB to scrape together an on-campus concert.
While WGTB has already put on their fall show, hosting Titus Andronicus and Free Energy this Friday, GPB seems to be sticking to the recent trend of reserving concerts for the end of the year.
According to GPB Concert Chair Danny Fortin, with only two months left in the semester, GPB has not yet begun the concert planning process. For comparison, GPB started planning in January for T-Pain’s late April concert last spring.
Luckily not all D.C. area colleges’ programming boards are so blasé about concert planning.
George Washington University’s programing board is hosting Maroon 5 on Friday, November 13—and they’ve kindly opened the ticket sales up to students at other local universities. Tickets are on sale now and cost $30 (what can you do, everything’s more expensive at GW).
Despite his dominance of the Top-40 singles chart, the famously auto-tuned T-Pain delivered an underwhelming performance at Saturday night’s concert in McDonough. This year’s iteration of the annual GPB Spring Concert disappointment was marked by a lackluster set of seemingly lip-synched dance songs played to a less-than-capacity crowd(Update: According to GPB Concert Chair Danny Fortin, tickets were sold out and the reason the crowd was so intimate was they had to stay under the University’s fire code limit of 2,500).
Opening acts Tay Dizm and Sophia Fresh (both signed to T-Pain’s own Nappy Boy label) attempted to warm up the crowd with high-energy dance beats, but were met with impatient indifference or confusion by the crowd. Sophia Fresh’s act didn’t seem to connect with the majority in attendance; when she yelled, in an effort to elicit some noise out of the almost comatose crowd, “how many men out there have been with a lady from the hood?” it was awkwardly silent. Tay Dizm’s dreadlocked appearance led to some confusion as to whether he was actually T-Pain, as drunken bros chanted “T-Pain” at him while he performed an on-stage striptease, slowly removing his shirt, gyrating to the music and exposing his diamond-grilled grin.
Tay Dizm left the stage around 10:20, leaving DJ Lil’ Boy a full 40 minutes to bide everyone’s time until T-Pain arrived. The energy in the gymnasium got a quick boost when Lil’ Boy began playing dance songs people actually knew, but he was unable to keep it going for long, and eventually people settled into restlessness as the minutes dragged on.
According to Georgetown Programming Board member Zach Reese (COL `12), GPB has ruled out three options it presented to Georgetown students when it surveyed them about the Spring Kickoff Concert: top three student picks Jason Mraz (seriously?), Lupe Fiasco, and Third Eye Blind.
But fear not! GPB is still on the case. They’re waiting on an offer they put out last week (they can’t say to who), but the process is slow going since they can only put out one offer at a time.
Photo taken from Flickr user Haags Uitburo under a Creative Commons license.
Last night’s annual Funding Board meeting concluded with a slap in the face for the International Relations Club and GPB, GUSA, and SAC making out like Rich Uncle Pennybags. In the end, the Funding Board had over $116,000 left over in reserve funds.
Even after having made what I criticized as a hypersensitive effort to atone for one alumn’s email prank, the IRC still faced punishment, and the Funding Board only allotted them funds for one Fall Conference as opposed to the normal two.
That’s harsh, since it seems pretty clear that the only blame they should bear is for flimsy protections of their listserv. And in that realm, Georgetown shouldn’t be casting the first stone.
Meanwhile, SAC made off like a bandit, the Funding Board having appropriated $7,000 to them for office supplies and new computers. The January 29th print version of the Voice reported that this was SAC’s largest allocation of the Fall semester. Yes, SAC’s biggest allocation this Fall was to itself, followed by allocations to IRC, Ballroom Dance, and Mock Trial for tournaments, and LASA for their annual Gala.
SAC also scored an additional $7,000 to rent a copier—to be fair, the University won’t let them purchase a copier because of the exorbitant repair fees they entail. All the same, they may want to look into Google Docs.
GUSA also received $4,000 for office renovations, printers, and office supplies. Their requests for club funding were dropped from $22,000 to $20,000. In a bizarre twist of fate, Performing Arts got more than it asked for.
The Funding Board officially allocated the $70,000 to GPB for the Spring Kickoff Concert, which may bring Jason Mraz (seriously?) to our fair campus. $10,000-$20,000 also went to GPB for the Fall semester, at which time they say they’ll try to bring a local band to campus.
The meeting ended when the Voice landed on Boardwalk with three houses and was forced to mortgage its Leavey Center office to pay the Media Board.
Reporting by Eric Pilch. Read the Voice’s full coverage in News. Bottom line: the Hoya’s on its way out from under the University’s thumb, and we’re not getting a climbing wall.
Photo taken from Flickr user mtsofan using a Creative Commons license.
Vox Populi is the staff blog of the Georgetown Voice, a weekly newsmagazine at Georgetown University. Opinions expressed in posts are those of their author alone unless otherwise stated.
Just before break, Vox reported how students voted for artists the Georgetown Programming Board could potentially bring to play at our Spring Kick-Off Concert. Third Eye Blind got the most first place votes, but ultimately, students ranked Lupe Fiasco highest overall, based on GPB’s tallying system.
These little piggies want to keep their votes
The planned GUSA Fund would make it rain
Enough to give you Foggy Bottom envy?
T-Painful
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