No ViCE-Versa 2006

After Wyclef bill, ViCE budget cannot support spring concert

Freddy Deknatel Arts Editor

Picking up the tab for Wyclef Jean and Blackalicious’ Feb. 11 performance in Walker Field House will prohibit Vassar College Entertainment (ViCE) from organizing what would have been the third annual ViCE-Versa concert on the eve of Founder’s Day this April.

According to ViCE CEO Jeremy Robinson-Leon ’07, “Our costs were much higher than we had estimated”—particularly the fees paid to Buildings and Grounds (B&G) and Security, which he said were “completely through the roof.” As a result, what remains of ViCE’s budget is not enough to fund the concert.

In the past two years, ViCE-Versa has treated Vassar students to Talib Kweli, Rainer Maria, Sleater-Kinney, and the Unicorns. The last two bands shared the 2004 inaugural ViCE-Versa stage with the band Panthers.

Robinson-Leon was quick to point out that the annual spring concert is not a long-standing tradition on campus. While “unhappy,” he stressed that “not everybody knows the history of ViCE-Versa: it was started two years ago, and it was just because ViCE had a huge surplus of money.”

This year’s ViCE Executive Board approached ViCE-Versa as an “afterthought,” according to Robinson-Leon. With many ViCE events planned by the Board as early as last summer, a large late April show was an event they would book and plan “when we had extra money at the end [of the year]” explained Robinson-Leon. “We chose to use our money earlier in the year.”

Last semester, ViCE flexed their $120,000 budget quickly, booking Clap Your Hands Say Yeah in early September, followed by an a October dance party hosted by Diplo and Spank Rock, and then a triple bill featuring Death From Above 1979, Man Man, and Genghis Tron in November. This semester, The Fatman Scoop and DJ Mr. Vince party in the Villard Room, held on Jan. 27, was particularly popular, and the costly Wyclef Jean and Blackalicious show drew some 1,700 attendants. The Books will play in the Chapel this Thursday, March 2.

The price tag for the Wyclef concert rose as the Feb. 11 show time neared, many members of the Board confirmed. With the final bill from B&G still pending, a comprehensive analysis of costs was not available. Nevertheless, it seems improvements to the stage were one of the pricey, late concert demands.

“The stage alone cost thousands more than we thought it would be,” Robinson-Leon said, while in general, “compared to other big shows, the costs were a lot higher.” For reference sake, Robinson-Leon noted that Wyclef and Blackalicious cost markedly more than The Roots, whose 2002 performance in Walker Field House was the last large-scale concert held on campus before Wyclef.

As for the concert bill’s impact on ViCE’s budget for the remainder of the semester, the cancelled ViCE-Versa concert aside, the picture is clearer. “We have several thousand dollars left in the budgeting for the Books and a few other events we have planned,” said ViCE

Promotions Director Anh Nguyen ’08. “But that also has to cover the pending bill from B&G and Security.”

Robinson-Leon noted that the unclear account of Wyclef costs and ViCE’s budget were because of “the incredibly bureaucratic processes that have overtaken B&G and Security.” He stressed he could not yet cite an accurate, numerical figure for how much they are charging ViCE.

ViCE Treasurer Zach Rottman ’07 echoed this conclusion, saying that “the Wyclef show was such a big show that none of the actual, specific numbers are definitely in yet—we just don’t know.”

“We would have liked to do it,” Robinson-Leon said in reference to ViCE-Versa. “But unfortunately we don’t have it in our budget to do.”

Not only are artists’ fees prohibitive, but the infrastructure for the concert is costly, as evidenced by what ViCE had to pay for Wyclef. Among such expensive measures necessary for another ViCE-Versa, Robinson-Leon included the lights for the stage at Ballantine Field—“the Founder’s Day Committee doesn’t pay for that,” said Robinson-Leon.

In terms of the overall success of the Wyclef concert, now three weeks after the fact, Robinson-Leon offered that “it was financially successful in that we were able to pay for it.” He acknowledged that big-budget events are “always a gamble, and an uncertainty.”

Such a large scale show was “something new people are calling for,” he pointed out, though how equipped ViCE will be to respond to campus calls for spring shows through the rest of the semester, now that the expected ViCE-Versa concert has been cancelled, will be answered in April.

Of note are the five concerts recently announced by WVKR that will, like last year, make the Mug a regular venue for Monday night music. The radio station is currently promoting these concerts, which include the likes of Blowfly, Bobby Birdman, Y.A.C.H.T., and E*Rock. Certainly, the spring will not be without live music, even though there will be no ViCE-Versa.

Robinson-Leon reiterated ViCE’s task of “trying to figure out a way to put on a big show while having enough money left to do other, smaller shows,” but clearly there are financial obstacles to such an aim. Overall, the Wyclef concert was a test for the feasibility of large shows at Vassar and has proven to be costlier, with more significant results, than ViCE predicted.

-Additional reporting by Marcella Veneziale, Arts Editor, and Rachel Wolff, Contributing Editor.