Last Saturday, the Georgetown Program Board hosted a Nappy Roots concert to a severely under-capacity crowd at McDonough Arena. On the same night, Georgetown’s Club Filipino held their annual cultural show and dinner “Bayanihan Dalawa” in a packed Copley Formal Lounge. By Friday, GPB had sold fewer than 500 tickets for a venue which can hold up to 3,000 people. In contrast, Club Filipino had effectively sold out on Friday, with sales of around 200 tickets.
Club Filipino is not the only student cultural organization to hold successful on-campus events. The South Asian Society’s annual Rangila festival has become a Georgetown tradition, with tickets selling out this year in just 10 minutes. GPB can learn from such cultural groups, which organize small- and medium-sized events that are not only successful and cost-effective, but are educational as well.
Bayanihan Dalawa cost $3 less than Nappy Roots, and the event featured ethnic food as well as dance, music and an entertaining atmosphere. Granted, cultural groups do target a specific ethnic and geographic community, thereby guaranteeing at least a minimal audience. However, the success of Rangila shows that a wider student community is willing to participate in events held by cultural groups.
Members of SAS and Club Filipino both point to word-of-mouth advertising and Georgetown students’ genuine interest in cultural activities as reasons for wider campus participation. For these reasons, larger events, like this week’s annual I-Week, have had similar levels of success. Furthermore, the cost of running cultural events is minimal, as many students volunteer their time to the student group and food is often donated or, in the case of Bayanihan Dalawa, home-cooked.
Student cultural groups provide weekend programming, which is both entertaining and educational. While GPB, with its free weekend movie screenings has been successful, Nappy Roots was clearly a misfire. GPB should learn from student cultural groups’ ability to excite the campus with intriguing, low-risk cultural events in smaller venues.
