Dear Editor,
I’m still frustrated that the system for choosing concerts on campus continues to pander to mainstream options by offering a limited range of mostly big-name acts to vote on (woefully complained about by many students) and then simply going with the majority of the student vote each time.
For $400,000 – the amount paid for Carrie Underwood’s recent concert – ETSU could have easily had two or three (or more) less famous musical acts, or even some kind of progressive music or performance series. Something like that would represent the alternative to what we all can get by turning on our radios and watching TV.
Why does a university campus such as our own that could bring the world to our doorstep continue to follow the same formula?
I don’t necessarily have a problem with mainstream entertainers, but it would be refreshing if the SGA and Buctainment would take a look at their policies on how they distribute concert funding and consider making this campus have something to offer that would be more global, relevant, and singular at least half, if not more, of the time. Many of the educational and cultural activities that are offered here at ETSU can’t be easily found elsewhere in the region.
Why are the concerts brought to this campus so relentlessly made up of acts that are mass-marketed, widely accepted, and so heavily saturated on the airwaves that we often find ourselves knowing the lyrics to songs that we don’t even like?
-Mira Gerard

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