This time last year, the annual concert planned by the Student Union Board (SUB) had come and gone, and the student body had enjoyed a fall performance by Cartel and Citizen Cope in the Stepan Center. This year, the performers have not yet been announced to the student body.
Sophomore Julie Sutton will become the executive board manager for SUB on April 1, taking over for current board manager Kat Burke. Sutton said planning the concert involves planning around events happening at Notre Dame and around the schedules of the performers, — a challenging task.
"We ran into problems with artists' schedules matching up with our schedule in that many bands are already booked on the days we had available for the concert, which is why we hit a few speed bumps and had to start back at square one a couple times," Sutton said. "Whereas last year the concert was in the fall, the dates available in the fall this year were not conducive to the schedules of the artists."
For this reason, she said, SUB moved the concert to the spring, and it is planned for April 10.
"We can't announce the performers to the student body until they have accepted an offer from us and signed a contract," Sutton said.
She did, however, confirm that these processes are underway with two different musical artists.
Marie Wicht is the concert co-programmer with Brian Hagerty. She said encountering pressure and speculation about the concert from the student body has become part of her everyday life.
"I get asked almost every day who the concert will be or will we have a concert, etc. So yes, we're very conscious of the speculation throughout campus," Wicht said.
Sutton said she is also familiar with this pressure.
"I have definitely heard buzz all over campus," she said. "Every time someone asks who will perform, I wish I could tell them. I know this is a big event of the year and everyone is excited to find out, and I promise that they will very, very soon."
The pressure is increased for the members of SUB who know what is at stake.
"We understand that money for student activities comes out of room and board fees, and for that reason we really owe it to the students to produce a good show," Sutton said. "We understand why this is so important, and we want to deliver a concert that students would want to go to and we're glad we spent their money how we did."
Wicht said the process of planning the event has been fun as well as stressful.
"There are a ton of things to consider when it comes to the concert and the hardest part is definitely coming to a consensus on who is the best fit for the student body and who people actually want to see," Wicht said.
Wicht worked with a team of SUB members to help plan the concert, and surveyed students for ideas.
"It was really successful. We got over a thousand responses the first night of the survey and have over 2,000 total responses to date," Wicht said. "From this survey, we could see definite preferences for performers and that narrowed down our options a great deal."
