Summer Sendoff Date Approved

Summer Sendoff may be turning into a Friday tradition. Last Sunday, The Business and Finance Committee (BFC) approved $80,000 for Social Board to hold this year’s Sendoff on Friday, April 26. This will be the second year Sendoff has been a Friday event instead of a Saturday one.

This year’s Social Board co-chair Lianne Castile ’13 said last year that as co-chair she would again prioritize the performer, letting Sendoff’s date be determined by when the best act was available. Castile and co-chair Eric Schulkin ’13 were unable to be reached for comment.

BFC co-chairs Sam Baker ’13 and Andie Asimes ’13 said Social Board’s proposal to hold another Friday Sendoff, which was informed by surveys conducted last year, was convincing. “When [Social Board] came to us to request the funding, they made a very compelling case for the campus wanting a Friday event, and various factors like safety, attendance, quality of performer and other factors are included in that,” Baker said. “On bigger events like this we have a lengthy conversation about that and Student Council agreed with it, so the funding was released.”

Last spring, the announcement that Sendoff would be moving to Friday took the campus by surprise. Baker attributed the initial, negative reaction partially to a “vocal minority.”

“When something gets taken out from under people, they’re pretty bummed out,” Baker said. “But I do think that there are large groups of people who feel both ways.” Last year’s event was generally well received by students and boasted the lowest number of disciplinary incidents of any Sendoff and no trips to the hospital.

Because students have consistently ranked a better musical guest as their priority for Sendoff, Social Board spent more money on booking last year’s performers, Big Boi and opening band STRFKR, leaving less for the event’s other components. The difficulties in hiring and paying people to work all day on a Saturday meant that the larger music budget had to be accommodated by a shorter event. “It’s important for students to understand that when Social Board throws this party, it takes a lot of manpower to host such a large event, and it’s really hard to recruit people to work all day on a Saturday,” Asimes said. “In the past, when it has been a day-long Saturday, they’ve seen attendance at the concert in the evening really dwindle, and that’s the largest part of the budget for the event. Having a low attendance at the concert kind of defeats the purpose of spending that money to get a good artist.”

Senior Class Committee President Ryan Liegner ’13, who organized the supplementary Saturday event Castaway last year, feels confident that focusing on the performer is the right move due to the information collected by Social Board through surveys. “It looks like Social Board went through a lot of research in making their decision. … Of course, what people remember is that it was a pretty good concert last year,” Liegner said. “It seems like they got a lot of good feedback in making this decision.”

“The date change is something that people might be upset about but … as long as the community at large is all right with that, it’s not really a problem,” Liegner said. “They put on a good Sendoff last year, so I’m looking forward to the one this year again.”