Every college student knows that when spring finally rolls around, campus transforms. Students are out on the green soaking up the sun, everyone seems friendlier, and there’s a feeling of excitement in the air. With this shift comes a plethora of springtime campus activities and events. One of the most anticipated events is the Spring Concert. Most universities have a popular artist come to their school each year to perform. You see these concerts all over social media, huge crowds of students gathered to go crazy to their favorite performers. Seton Hall has their own version of this, but let’s just say it doesn’t quite compare to other universities.
Based on my own experiences and what I’ve heard from my peers over the years, our spring concert always dulls in comparison to other universities. I know that in the past I’ve been jealous of some of the huge names that have come to my friend’s schools to put on a show, while Seton Hall hires a lackluster C-list performer, or a now washed-up child singer.
The Spring Concert is run by our university’s Student Activities Board (SAB). Although I know that SAB works really hard at putting on fun events for the students, and usually succeeds at doing so, our spring concert is the one event that always seems to fall short. It being my senior year, I would love it if we had the opportunity to have an amazing spring concert like I’ve seen at other universities. It would be awesome to have the whole pirate community come together to enjoy the night, but due to the reputation of the spring concerts over the last few years, I’ve noticed that turnout has dwindled over the past few years.
That’s why this week I turned to my friends and peers at Seton Hall to do a little crowdsourcing and get to the bottom of this issue. Having experienced these concerts myself, I had my own ideas on what the issues were and what changes we could make to have a great spring concert. However, in order to see the bigger picture, I really needed to hear firsthand from the pirate community at large. So, I took to Twitter and Instagram to connect and engage with my peers, and I have to say I’m very happy with how it went. Let’s dive into what I found!
First, I needed to know if students usually attended the Spring Concert or were planning on going this year. This was important because it would help me determine if my observation was right that attendance at this event was drastically dwindling over the years, and if the reputation of the event was affecting potential turnout for this year. Responses to my Twitter poll showed that 50% of those who answered said that they usually attend the spring concert and planned on doing so this year, while the other 50% did not.
However, knowing that I don’t have that many followers on my Twitter account, I posed the same question on my Instagram story, which received exponentially more responses, which I think provided a more accurate number in the end. These are the results:
As you can see, 81% of those who responded said they do not usually attend the Spring Concert each year, and 74% said that they do not plan on attending this year. With responses from over 100 Seton Hall students, after conducting this poll I feel confident in confirming my idea that due to disappointment with the event over the last few years, students have lost interest in going to the Spring Concert, and are already anticipating not going without even knowing who is performing this year.
This data pointed me to the conclusion that students are not going to the Spring Concert because they are unhappy and disinterested with the artists who are coming to perform, and based on past experiences they assume that this year won’t be any different.
From my personal experience I’ve always thought that other universities had far better Spring Concerts and wondered why Seton Hall couldn’t do the same. I wasn’t sure if this was just personal preference or campus wide opinion, so I decided to take that question to the Instagram polls as well.
As it turns out, the majority of students agreed with me, with 95% of students surveyed stated that they believe other universities have better artists performing at their Spring Concerts. Over the past few years, Seton Hall has had AJR and Jesse McCartney come to perform. Neither of these artists are necessarily huge names or popular with the college crowd, so I can see why students would be disappointed.
Even more so, it’s hard not to be jealous when we see our friends from home who attend different universities posting stories of the big artists who have come to their schools. For reference, a few years back one of my close friends from home had Khalid, a Grammy nominated artist, perform at their spring concert at Bentley University. Of course, every university has a different budget and different means, so it is understandable that Seton Hall may not be able to get huge artists. But I believe if SHU put more effort into actually asking students who they would want to see, they would have a much better turnout and happier students.
To see how this would work, once again I took to Instagram to ask Seton Hall Students who they would like to see perform at our Spring Concert. Here are just a few of the many responses I got:
Although these are some bigger names, many of these artists have performed at colleges before, so it is definitely in the realm of possibility.
This response alone shows that SHU students aren’t that picky, they just want to see somebody relevant and have a good time!
By far, the most popular response that I got was Post Malone. Regardless of how likely it would be to actually get Post Malone specifically to come to Seton Hall to perform, I wanted to see how much more likely SHU students would be to attend the Spring Concert if the artist was someone who they were actually interested in, and had a role in choosing.
The results were astonishing.
Starting off with 74% of students surveyed saying they likely wouldn’t attend this year’s Spring Concert, to end with 89% of students saying they would attend if an artist they liked was performing reveals the main takeaway from all of this crowdsourcing. If SHU wants to compete with other universities and keep these events fun and fresh for pirates, they need to become more in tune with what the students are actually into, and what is current. As I learned from my own research this week, students are more than willing to share their opinions and speak out about what they want, all you have to do is listen. With more input from our own student body, I believe we can bring back the fun with our Spring Concerts!
Maria's Musings 