Let WGTB run its own concerts

Even the biggest Coolio fan can admit that when it comes to showing students a good time, the Georgetown Program Board rarely delivers. But when GPB agreed to provide WGTB, our student-run radio station, with the majority of the funding for a concert featuring Girl Talk—a mash-up artist with legendary live shows—it didn’t seem like GPB’s poor track record would be a problem. WGTB would do what it is best at, throwing successful concerts that don’t feature D-list rappers, and GPB would do what it is best at, spending its thousands of dollars in University funding.

Unfortunately, it was too good to be true. GPB seized majority control over the show, forcing WGTB into a secondary role. WGTB had planned to publicize the show last week and sell tickets this week, but GPB chose to sell tickets last Thursday and Friday. Although WGTB received late notice that GPB would be tabling, they were unable to get their representatives out to Red Square, and before WGTB was even able to flier campus, GPB had sold out the show. Many of WGTB’s e-mail list subscribers, who thought that tickets would be on sale this week, were left ticketless. WGTB made a good-faith effort to cooperate with GPB on publicity and ticketing, but GPB was more interested in taking control than in working with WGTB.

GPB should not have control over concerts, especially if groups like WGTB, which has a history of putting on solid shows, go through the trouble of booking the artists. GPB concert chair Sarah Alexander (MSB `08) wrote in an e-mail that GPB “typically will not put money toward an event in which we are not involved in the planning process.”

In that case, the University should continue to fund GPB’s movies and trips around D.C., but it should give concert money directly to groups that know how to organize concerts.

Time and time again, GPB has demonstrated that concerts are not its strong point, from the Fountains of Wayne disaster last year to the recent Coolio debacle. For the Girl Talk show, they asked WGTB for a schedule down to the half-hour, an unnecessary formality that WGTB has not used at successful shows in the past, according to a WGTB staff member.

GPB cannot be blamed for the fact that the show sold out a day after tickets went on sale because Georgetown’s lack of concert venues—which forced the show to be held in Bulldog Alley instead of Walsh Black Box—guaranteed that ticket demand would outweigh the supply. But funding alone does not give GPB grounds for taking control of a concert that was initiated by WGTB and ultimately, should have been executed by WGTB.