Despite many Bacchanal events, concert remains main draw

For most students, Bacchanal Weekend is synonymous with the big free concert on Low Plaza. But this year, club organizers are attempting to make the often-overlooked days and events part of the big show.

Some students might be surprised to hear that Bacchanal includes more than just the anticipated concert and accompanying publicity stunts. Chewbacchanal Weekend actually starts today with a 4/20 3-D screening of “Coraline” at 8 p.m. This Friday, starting at 12 p.m., is “Party with Chewbacca”—an opportunity for Chewbacca photo ops, free food, and other giveaways. The day of the April 24 concert kicks off with “Chewbacca’s Hope for Haiti,” a campus carnival starting at noon. On the day after the big performance, Bacchanal is hosting a brunch catered by Kitchenette, starting at noon.

Specifically, club organizers have expressed that they hope the weekend will be more of an event in itself, although they admit that many think of it as a footnote to the concert. Club treasurer Cleo McGovern, BC ’12, emphasized that only about $10,000 of the club’s total budget is used toward these non-concert weekend events.

“We try to put a lot of publicity into the other events as well, but the large act and set of the concert seem to draw the most attention,” concert chair Daniel Weinstein, CC ’12, said. “We like to think of it as one big event, though, and try to get as many people out for the whole weekend as possible.”

Some students wonder if the club should just forget about the weekend events, and instead use the money allocated to these events to put on a bigger and better concert.
“I feel the concert is certainly the highlight of the event, but I feel the Bacchanal committee does a great job allocating funds the way they do, and signing the artists they do without having to make students pay to attend the concert,” Raul Gonzalez, CC ’12, said. “Though I am interested in seeing what artists would play if an entire budget was put up for the concert, and whether people would pay to attend.”

“When it comes down to it, the free T-shirts and giveaways are pretty cheap, compared with the cost of the concert itself,” Weinstein said. “Most of the money we don’t allocate toward the concert pays for other events throughout the year.”

But despite organizers’ best efforts to promote the whole event, students’ top concern still seems to be with the big concert.

Some worry about the issue of transparency. Although the Bacchanal concert draws one of the largest student audiences of any campus event, the band decision-making process is in the hands of a select group—the concert chairs, Weinstein and Mia Johnson, BC ’12, and presidents Alex Kirk, CC ’11, and Jody Zellman, GS.

“I think it would be great if students had a larger say in the decision, for the obvious reason that they will have a better chance [of] seeing artists they like,” Dina Tyson, BC ’13, said.

Club members agreed that they would like more student input in the future, but affirmed that secrecy is a way to avoid certain logistical problems.

“We always try to reach out to students in the beginning of the year to get as much input as possible,” Weinstein said. “We’ve done this by word of mouth. It might be good to try it out next year by electronic poll or something. At the same time, though, as soon as we start discussing the concert with our agent, everything happens on the down-low for reasons, such as artist publicity preferences to campus security’s concerns in case the word gets out on too large a scale.

“Other schools can’t simply vote and get the act they choose—signing an artist is way more complicated than just choosing one and reaching out,” Weinstein added. “It’s impossible to get it done without going into contractual issues which never reach popular opinion.”

Despite these issues, Columbians are getting pumped up for the biggest organized student life event on campus. In fact, for one senior, the lineup brings him back to his freshman year at Columbia.

“I’m very pleased with the artists chosen,” Erik Holsten, CC ’10, said. “When I was a freshman, of Montreal’s ‘Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?’ was my favorite album. Now they’re playing at Bacchanal my senior year. It came full circle.”