Coldplay, Dave Matthews Band, Springsteen-sorry, none of these bands will be playing at Fairfield this year.
In the past year the FUSA programming board has been criticized for the selections made for entertainment and bands. Most recently, they were criticized for the spring concert, which featured Howie Day.
According to some students, Day paled in comparison to the concerts held at other universities, including University of Rhode Island who featured Dave Matthews, the University of New Hampshire who booked The Roots, and Boston College who featured the popular Ben Folds.
So why can’t Fairfield get big bands to come to campus?
“Most people don’t understand the amount of hard work put in by FUSA to do programming,” said FUSA vice president of programming Jillian Grant ’05, adding that most bands requested by students won’t play at colleges of our size and budget.
“Recording agents require some artists only to play at large arenas, and since most bands are based in Los Angeles it is very costly to have them come,” said FUSA advisor Bill Bordak. “We work around the artists’ tour schedules.”
In addition to working toward bidding for a better artist this year, FUSA already has announced several planned events for the fall semester.
FUSA will begin by subsidizing tickets to the Matchbox 20 concert at Harbor Yard on October 14 at 7:30 pm. Tickets, which usually run around $40, will be available to students for around $20, according to FUSA representatives.
In November, FUSA will bring comedian Dave Chappelle of Comedy Central’s “The Dave Chappelle Show”. After the wave of positive feedback from Fairfield students who attended Chappelle’s show at Sacred Heart University last year, FUSA decided to bring him to Fairfield.
Chappelle will be performing in Alumni Hall on November 1. Tickets will cost around $15.
“We try to run many low cost programs because we understand that college students have a limited budget,” said Grant.
FUSA has also booked local favorite and alumnus Tim Warren ’03, front man of The Alternate Routes, who are scheduled to perform on November 6. More details will be released as they are announced.
So far FUSA has no specific details concerning the spring concert. Later this fall the programming board will work in collaboration with Clear Channel, a talent buyer, to book the spring show.
Leave a Reply