Every year the Programming Board and Wilkes Events brings an artist to Wilkes-Barre to perform a concert for Wilkes students.
Many students do not know how the options presented to students are chosen, and with the survey planned to debut to students at the Snow Ball dance, members of the Programming Board and Events Planning would like to clear that up.
The Events Chair, Lindsey Covel, starts in the summer and early fall semester posting on the Programming Board Facebook looking for students to give their suggestions about who they want for the concert.
“This year we also did a poll at Club Day,” Covel said. “From there we take the suggestions to the Programming Board general board, as well as a list of every possible artist we could use for the concert. The general board goes through the artists, keeping in mind the suggestions in an effort to make more suggestions.”
The executive board then takes the suggestions and, working with a middle agent and the Kirby Center, figures out availability and pricing for each of the artists in relation to the Kirby Center.
This process narrows the options down enough to go back to the general board to pick the final artists to go on thesurvey.
Once the results are calculated, they “go first with the artist that came in first on the survey, then we work down the line if for some reason pricing or availability changes,” Covel said.
“With artists being asked to perform on different shows, availabilities tend to change often, or their requests become too excessive for what our budget can handle, so unfortunately those are our biggest challenges once the survey closes.”
The money used to hire an artist comes from Student Government.
“We are a budgeted club through Student Government, so student activities fees ultimately help fund our club.” Jess Short, Programming Board director, said. “We really want students to know that we care about them and their choices. We want to make the best concert possible for the majority. Also, we are very fortunate here at Wilkes because some schools don’t even have a budget to have a concert. And, of course, we do not just pick whoever we want for the concert, there is a process.”
Even after the survey and Facebook and Twitter suggestions via the Programming Board pages, Short still asks for more information.
“We ask our friends, we have our members ask their friends and we ask agents who is hot on the college scene right now and who is up-and-coming and we have a whole meeting dedicated to going through lists of artists,” Short said.
To vote for who should perform at Wilkes, fill out the survey distributed after the SnowBall dance on Friday, Nov. 30. Some of the current choices are Imagine Dragons, 2 Chainz, Tyga, Childish Gambino, Young the Giant, Walk the Moon, Kit Moore, Florida Georgia Line and Hunter Hayes.
Any suggestions for future artists can be submitted to the Programming Board’s Facebook page, an email to the Events Chair or ideas can be suggested in Student Government meetings.