For the record

As Union Board directors, we take our roles as student leaders seriously, and we listen carefully to any feedback our programs receive. With this in mind, I am concerned by the inaccuracies and accusations made by Yahya Chaudhry in his Tuesday column.

First, he claims that Union Board paid the band, Chairlift, $250 more than it had requested for its Nov. 1 performance. Chairlift’s agent had initially contacted Live From Bloomington requesting a performance fee of $500. During contract negotiations a month later, the band had increased its fee to $750 because of routing changes in its tour. This type of change is fairly common in the concert industry, and Union Board still felt confident the show was a great opportunity for students.

As for the financial details of the show itself, Mr. Chaudhry unfairly alleges that Union Board “lost” $1,000 on the concert. Union Board does not look to make a profit on any of its events. If we did, what would be the point of Union Board receiving student activity fees in the first place? For ticketed events, our main objective is to keep ticket prices as low as possible in order to serve the most number of students.

For Chairlift, there was almost no variance between budgeted and actual costs. What did vary was the amount of tickets Union Board expected to sell. Even for experienced concert promoters, predicting concert attendance is more art than science. While the show did not attract as many students as Union Board had expected, turnout was still strong considering it was Halloween weekend.

At one point, Mr. Chaudhry claims Union Board’s Live From Bloomington committee was responsible for putting on last year’s Feist concert. Within Union Board, the concert’s committee is charged with the task of bringing a few large concerts each year. LFB is responsible for organizing many smaller shows like the Chairlift concert.
LFB has done spectacular things this year. This year’s LFB Club Night, LFB’s signature event showcasing 20 local acts for charity, raised 14,000 pounds of food for Hoosier Hill’s food bank, shattering last year’s record. NOISE, LFB’s weekly concert series featuring student bands, has a large and devoted audience. For the first time ever, LFB provided live local music for two Student Alumni Association Homecoming events and worked with a number of groups to promote sales of its Club Night compilation album.

Because of these successes, 112 local bands submitted applications to be part of next year’s Club Night, and artists are clamoring to be featured at NOISE shows.

I find it disheartening that Mr. Chaudhry decided to manipulate the facts to unfairly disparage a successful Union Board event. But the fact that he uses his inaccurate and unsubstantiated view of one event to denigrate Live from Bloomington and Union

Board as “corrupt” and ineffectual is beyond the pale.

Instead of condemning Union Board without the slightest idea of how we operate, I would like to invite Mr. Chaudhry to come to our meetings, talk to our members and see how seriously we take our responsibilities as student leaders.