PB will use SXSW connections to bring groups to campus

While Pro­gram­ming Board has tra­di­tion­ally worked to bring fun, in­ter­est­ing acts to cam­pus, a new shift in focus on pro­gram­ming di­ver­sity is tak­ing place in the wake of the group’s re­cent re­struc­tur­ing. This change was re­flected in the two stu­dent rep­re­sen­ta­tives PB sent to the 2011 South by South­west Fes­ti­val in Austin, Texas.

“There’s an in­ter­est in get­ting a wider va­ri­ety of con­certs for cam­pus,” Brian Dye, as­sis­tant di­rec­tor of the Col­lis Cen­ter and stu­dent ac­tiv­i­ties, said. “This is a way to see who’s on the rise.”

In ad­di­tion to the shift in the kind of con­certs that will be held on cam­pus, there is an ini­tia­tive to es­tab­lish a cam­pus music blog­ging cul­ture that could pro­vide pro­gram­ming or­ga­ni­za­tions with feed­back about where stu­dents’ mu­si­cal in­ter­ests lie, Dye said.

In the past, PB has sent del­e­gates to the Na­tional As­so­ci­a­tion for Cam­pus Ac­tiv­i­ties Con­ven­tion, which oc­curs each Feb­ru­ary. This event is geared to­wards gen­eral “cam­pus ac­tiv­i­ties,” which in­clude not only mu­si­cal acts but also nov­elty acts, which are often along the lines of per­form­ing ma­gi­cians or stand-up co­me­di­ans. SXSW, on the other hand, is fo­cused on con­certs and al­lowed Dart­mouth’s PB rep­re­sen­ta­tives to see live per­for­mances. While the group still sent rep­re­sen­ta­tives to NACA this year, fewer at­tended to allow for fund­ing for a SXSW trip.

In ad­di­tion to Amaris Galea-Orbe ’11, who at­tended as the PB con­cert di­rec­tor, Fri­day Night Rock venue man­ager Rob Szypko ’12 also had the op­por­tu­nity to re­search new bands in Austin.

“My main focus in going was to book artists for our Earth Day con­cert and our Green Key bar­beque,” Galea-Orbe said. “I’ve al­ready put four bids in.”

She em­pha­sized the ad­van­tages of see­ing a live show be­fore book­ing, as at­tend­ing per­for­mances in per­son gave her the chance to gauge the per­former’s show­man­ship and the level of au­di­ence re­sponse. Going to con­certs also gave her a chance to see what worked well in terms of crowd con­trol and drink dis­tri­b­u­tion at music events, Galea-Orbe said.

Szypko had the op­por­tu­nity to at­tend the fes­ti­val thanks to fund­ing from PB, as FNR has a com­par­a­tively small bud­get, FNR book­ing man­ager Matt Knight ’11 said.

“FNR does a lot of book­ing for cam­pus which is why we reached out to them,” Dye said.

At­ten­dees also had the chance to see some of SXSW’s many music busi­ness talks, which gave them in­sight into ad­ver­tis­ing con­certs and book­ing per­form­ers, Galea-Orbe said.

FNR’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive came back to cam­pus with a va­ri­ety of rec­om­men­da­tions for fu­ture groups to book, Knight said. The trip wasn’t just about re­search­ing groups, how­ever, as it also served as a chance for FNR to con­tact agents and meet other peo­ple from the music in­dus­try, he said.

“We’re al­ready see­ing re­turns from the trip in the form of good con­nec­tions in the spring, but the real re­sults will be more vis­i­ble this fall,” Knight said.

While FNR didn’t want to give too much away about its spring sched­ule be­cause many shows are still in the process of being booked, stu­dents can look for­ward to see­ing “Read­ing Rain­bow,” a two-piece combo from Philadel­phia that played at SXSW that will open for “Night­lands” on May 13, Knight said. The group “Ober­hofer,” who was also at the fes­ti­val, played at Fuel this Fri­day.

Dart­mouth has an ad­van­tage over some smaller schools when book­ing shows be­cause of its lo­ca­tion be­tween Boston and Mon­treal, mak­ing it a log­i­cal stop for groups that have time be­tween shows in the two cities, Dye said.

Szypko is a mem­ber of The Dart­mouth Se­nior Staff.