Concerts

As my time as chair of the AMP music committee comes to a close, I'm reflecting upon changes we've made. At least since I've been a W&M student, the music productions committee has struggled to please the W&M community, often receiving persistent criticism from students. This year, we've made several reforms in an effort to better serve the campus. For the next several weeks, I will examine notable changes and discuss the reasons we made them. I hope that this series will provide an insider's perspective into how AMP works and illustrate the give-and-take that comes with any decision made by the music productions committee.

This blog post focuses upon the different approach we took to scheduling concerts this year. As you have probably noticed, we are not hosting a big "Spring Concert." This has been a deliberate decision on our part, made in an effort to reach as many students as possible. Instead of one large show, we booked five medium-sized shows.

In the past, spring concerts have almost always been our most critiqued shows. Much of this criticism has been justified: if your genre of music was not represented by the Spring Concert, then you would not get to take advantage of money paid to student activities fees. No matter what genre we picked for spring concert, the majority of campus was upset that their music was not being represented. Each year, we faced strong criticism. As the bands that could potentially draw several thousand W&M students (Dave Matthews, Kayne, Radiohead) are way out of our price range, we were left every year with between 800 and 1,800 students attending Spring Concert, and fierce criticism from segments of campus that felt excluded. We were consistently left to sell the majority of tickets to non-W&M students, which we felt was outside the central mission of AMP.

Our decision to book numerous medium-sized bands is grounded in the fundamental insight that there are numerous different groups of music enthusiasts at W&M. Different genres have different fans, and all are entitled to be represented by the bands AMP music brings. If we have several medium-sized shows throughout the year and fill 800 person venues, we will have served more students and brought more diverse acts to campus. Splitting up the money typically allocated for spring concert has allowed us to bring Virginia Coalition, Jens Lekman, Girl Talk, David Cook, and one last show we'll announce soon. Taken together, attendance at these events already far outstrips what we would normally get for spring concert. And, just as importantly, we have been able to appeal to a wide range of music interests, making students feel more represented by AMP.

This approach does have its drawbacks. Theoretically, we could get lucky one year and book that perfect band that unites the campus and becomes immensely popular. Though it hasn't happened recently, it could (and from our perspective, nothing beats a well-attended, well-regarded event). This year, we felt past experience proved that mode of thinking was impracticle; next year, the new music productions committee may return to the one-big-concert framework. These questions don't have easy answers, feedback is always appreciated.

I am proud of the decision to revise our schedule. In my opinion, we reached an unprecedented amount of students who listen to diverse genres of music and made them feel included by AMP. Next week, I'll discuss a reform I am less proud of: our effort to increase transparency and feedback.