As one of the main organizations to bring entertainment to campus, the Entertainment Council, which is part of ASUCD, aims to supply the student body with accessible avenues to enjoy.
Being a somewhat smaller aspect of the whole student body governing system, Entertainment Council is given a fair amount of flexibility in terms of how they accomplish attracting, producing and executing Freeborn Hall-sized concerts in years past.
But this year, Entertainment Council Director Henry Chatfield, a senior psychology major, has an even bigger plan for the organization. Along with Entertainment Council’s assistant director and senior technocultural studies major Timothy Chin, and ASUCD’s president and history major, Adam Thongsavat, the team has big goals and big ways to achieve them.
“We’ve had some awesome directors in the past,” Chatfield said. “But Tim and I are trying to go in a different direction, in terms of the size of the shows that we’re bringing. We’ve got some really exciting things we’re working on.”
Last Spring quarter, Thongsavat, Chatfield and Chin proposed Senate Bill 77 to grant the Entertainment Council bigger funds and a means to accomplish Pavilion sized shows.
“We drafted a senate bill which passed and gives us a lot more ability to bring in bigger shows,” Chatfield said. “With more money to work with but in a very fiscally responsible way. It will give us more of an ability to work with what the students would like to see.”
With this new bill, Entertainment Council plans to reach heights that have not been feasibly possible in previous years, for pure lack of funding.
“It gives $100,000 from Reserves for the Entertainment Council, which gives us a mechanism to have a huge capital to get larger venues, like the Pavilion. Which will return us huge funds. It was a huge proposal to come up with,” Thongsavat said.
With this new “machine,” the Entertainment Council fully intends to use the full weight and bring larger sized concerts to Davis, so that in the future, students will fully expect this from their student government.
“We are not like UC San Diego, who has a huge entertainment fee passed onto their students,” Thongsavat said. “They have a mechanism where they have a big fee for students that get them big concerts. Ours is not nearly as large, but now we can compete with other schools and venues.”
More than just bringing in bigger events, Entertainment Council and ASUCD are concerned with maintaining their top priority of pleasing the student body.
“We are doing a lot of shows on Freeborn and Pavilion. It makes it really tough, but it’s on the right course,” Thongsavat said. “My dream is that this will become a large mechanism, with keeping costs low and making money off general admissions. And allowing students to see high quality entertainment.”
Chatfield confirmed that as always, Entertainment Council continues to strive to bring down the price of the ticket but not the value of it.
“We’re working more closely with the executive staff with ASUCD; they are also trying to bring students the cheapest prices possible,” Chatfield said.
The success of the bill, and the consequential ripples that can be felt with its passage, Chin attributed to the relationship between ASUCD and Entertainment Council.
“We’ve been working really closely with ASUCD, and found out what they felt worked and did not [in the past], and try make every event we put together as successful and as available to the students as possible,” Chin said.
To prove they mean business, the Entertainment Council has confirmed that Cake, a native Sacramento band, is performing in Freeborn on Oct. 6 and 7, with help of concert promoters, Square Peg Concerts.
Another concert that the Entertainment Council team secured is occurring on Friday. During this year’s Buzz, a great up and coming band, Wallpaper, will perform.
In addition to that, this year will see free lunch-time entertainment outside on the Quad. Confirmed dates include Writer on Oct. 13, Sleepy Feet on Oct. 17, and Finish Ticket on Oct. 27.
BRITTANY PEARLMAN can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.
