Student government leaders are still looking for a musical act to fill the empty stage at this year’s spring break concert.
Student government and school officials bring a musical act to campus to entertain students and community members every year. However, this year’s process of securing a group is proving to be more challenging than expected.
“We have spent months thinking of artists to bring to town,” said Student Body President Carlos Morgan, a senior communication major from Santa Clara. “When we finally selected a performer, things fell through. We are pretty much on our plan C right now.”
The plan in the beginning was to have a combined concert with Southern Utah University and bring the groups Twenty One Pilots and Grouplove to southern Utah. Both student governments thought this would be a good idea, but problems arose when the time came to decide on a venue for the concert. Naturally, DSU wanted to have the concert in St. George, and SUU wanted to stay in Cedar City.
After months of discussing the problem, both schools decided to go their separate ways and plan their own events.
Plan B consisted of having the group Neon Trees come, but scheduling conflicts arose with the lead singer of the group.
“We had them booked, but then the lead singer said he wanted a day off,” Morgan said. “There are people on student government, though, who know the band personally, and we are hoping we can convince them to come anyway.”
Time has gone by, and with no word from Neon Trees, student government voted and selected Hoody Allen and Sammy Adams to be the performers for this year’s concert.
Members of student government proposed the idea to school officials, and that is where the next problem arose.
“They shot down the idea,” Morgan said. “Hoody Allen and Sammy Adams are hip-hop artists, and school officials said it is too risky to bring them to the school after what happened last year.”
A controversy arose when the Macklemore and Ryan Lewis concert was held here by the student government last spring. While some were pleased with the way the concert went, complaints from community members and students started flooding in after Macklemore used explicit language that could be heard through the St. George valley.
Now student government is left with an empty stage. The spring concert is somewhat of a tradition for Dixie State University, so the event will happen, Morgan said.
Student government turned to the student body to vote for what kind of concert it would like to have.
Students had until Sunday to vote online between three different kinds of concerts.
The first option was an outside concert with one big-named musician with a local band as an opening act, the second option was to have two smaller acts outside, and the third was to have two smaller hip-hop acts inside.
Student government plans to review the results and put in a bid by the end of the week.
“My choice is to have the concert outside, but I am not the only one who will be attending the concert,” Morgan said. “Ultimately, the decision will be based on what the student body wants.”
