Our senior editorial staff has witnessed the announcement of three concerts at Fairfield.
What might be discouraging to FUSA is that half of the Editorial Board has not attended any FUSA concert in their three years at Fairfield.
But FUSA and the concert committee can be applauded for negotiating deals with several solid performers with very different musical styles. It was extremely smart and thoughtful of them to not commit to one performer who some students would love and others would hate. Sean Kingston has had several songs which students love, most recently “Fire Burning.” And while you may not know the name Eve 6 off the top of your head, you’ve definitely heard their songs before.
We, along with other students, cite not attending concerts in the past for a combination of reasons. One is that we never cared that much for the performers. Another is that if we didn’t care that seriously about the performer, why would we want to spend $30-$40 to see them?
Melissa Mann, The Mirror’s entertainment editor, and FUSA’s director of concerts, said that they chose two different artists with the intention of pleasing everyone. A third act is expected to be confirmed after Christmas break, which she says is probably closer to Eve 6 in style. Mann says that tickets should be $35 maximum, but you’re paying to see three different acts, which should be a pretty long concert.
The Mirror staff was hoping for Taylor Swift, which has been rumoured to be this year’s concert for the past couple of months, but at over $500,000, Swift would have cost too much. Considering that the concert budget is only $33,000, it is quite impressive that negotiations were made in order to afford these two artists, plus an unannounced artist.
Sean Kingston and Eve 6 are at least a different type of music than year’s prior — since our year’s here, we’ve never had any pop-reggae performers, and we haven’t had a rock band since 2007.
But FUSA, don’t be surprised if you still hear some complaints. At first glance, the stark differences in these artists also can work against you — honestly, Sean Kingston and Eve 6 is a strange pairing.
And you will always get the nay-sayers who are consistently angry that we don’t get as great of acts as Sacred Heart, who has already hosted The Fray and Maroon 5 this semester.
In a perfect world, FUSA would reach out to the Arena at Harbor Yard to partner to host a major concert. The two venues could split the cost and the Arena would practically be guaranteed a sellout if the name was big enough. FUSA could spend its $33,000 in exchange for a guarantee of a set number of student tickets. There might be some concerns about shuttling students to an off-campus venue, but Fairfield already encourages it for its basketball games, so why not a concert?
In reality, this concert will evoke a similar response as every other year: some pleased, some angry, but mostly, apathetic.
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