WWPV and myTracks.com will be sponsoring the upcoming event, which will be free and exclusive to St. Michael’s students.
Due to the date switch from the Friday night before P-Day to the actual night of P-Day, changes had to be made regarding who could attend the concert, WWPV station manager Kyle Chadburn says.
S.A.'s Saturday switch
State Radio performing live at the Metro in Chicago in this YouTube video. |
The concert, which was meant to be open to the public, would have produced a much higher turnout. Because the event has been changed to P-Day, St. Michael’s P-Day policy states that concerts on P-Day must be closed to the public, Chadburn says. Therefore, when the concert was moved, it became a closed event.
“We are excited about the concert, but we’re upset when it was closed to the public,” says Kari Cafouros, myTracks.com university promotions manager.
Although State Radio had committed to WWPV to play on Friday night, the band wanted to change the date to fit a show in New Hampshire into their schedule, Chadburn says.
The band contacted Alex Kruthers who works at the Higher Ground and helps book bands for St. Michael’s, Student Association President Alex Monahan says. Kruthers knows the manager for State Radio and contacted the S.A. requesting the date change for the band, Monahan says.
Kruthers was unavailable for comment on this issue.
The S.A. agreed to the date-change and believed that because of the culture of P-Day, it would be good for students to have a band on Saturday night, Monahan says.
WWPV is against this change because of agreements made with myTracks.com, Chadburn says.
There was a meeting held between the S.A. and WWPV regarding the issue, both Monahan and Chadburn say. Both parties have different feelings on the outcome of that meeting.
“A decision was made without talking to us,” Chadburn says.
Monahan feels that there has been some miscommunication between the two groups, saying it was not intentional on the part of the S.A.
“We definitely would have made [State Radio] stick to Friday night,” Chadburn says.
Because of the date-change, WWPV has dealt with the consequences, Chadburn says. If the concert was held on Friday night and still open to the public, they could have charged non-St. Michael’s students for the show and made some profit, he says.
Chadburn did not welcome the change because it meant that State Radio would have to work with a production company that the band is not familiar with. This is due to the band’s production company not being able to work on P-Day, Chadburn says.
There were tons of people blogging on the State Radio Web site from many different nearby states that were excited about the concert, he says. Explaining to these people that the concert was no longer public was disappointing for everyone, he adds.
“We had to keep changing our advertisements around,” Chadburn says. “It made us look unprofessional. I have stacks of posters advertising a public concert for the wrong date.”
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stack of posters from myTracks.com sits in the WWPV office unused. (Photo by Kaitlin Couillard) |
MyTracks.com was the creator and supplier of the posters sitting on Chadburn’s desk. The Web site spent over $400 posters that promoted the Web site, WWPV and State Radio, Cafouros says.
Chadburn was Cafouros’ original contact in planning the concert, but the S.A. became more involved later on, she says. Once
MyTracks.com learned of the venue change and the fact that the concert would have to be private, they were disappointed, Cafouros says.
“There is less promotional reach for the Web site due to the venue change,” she says.
She had never heard of P-Day and did not understand the policies that it entails, she says. During the confusion between the S.A and WWPV, Cafouros felt left in the dark, she says.
“There’s not much we can do on our end,” Cafouros says, regarding the inconveniences that the venue change has caused them.
Chadburn says he tried to explain the situation to Mytracks.com because they were upset with him, and he told them to discuss further matters with Director of Student Activities Grace Kelly and Monahan.
MyTracks.com understands the situation now after the S.A. explained P-Day, Monahan says.
And the winner is…
MyTracks.com allows users to legally post, share and download music, Cafouros
says. Users can create a free listener account, which allows them to save
and share songs to listen to within the Web site, Cafouros says. Users
can also pay $4.95 to create an official account that gives them access
to all the songs on the site to download as mp3s.
WWPV entered the college in a contest on myTracks.com to win $5,000 towards a concert of choice from over 1,000 bands provided by the Web site. St. Michael’s won.
The goal of the myTracks.com contest was to see which school could get the most students to create accounts on the site, based on that school’s population, Cafouros says. Over 380 colleges and universities entered the contest, each school having one representative. Chadburn was St. Michael’s representative for the contest, Cafouros says.
The contest was a way to promote Mytracks.com to raise awareness of the site and establish a wider customer base, Cafouros says. WWPV chose State Radio because they believed the band would attract the most appeal in the area, Chadburn says.
No hard feelings?
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WWPV DJs and sophomores
David Spatcher and Dave Walsh talk on their radio show in the
booth. |
No further changes will be made for the State Radio concert date. The
S.A. and WWPV held another meeting on Tuesday, April 15 about the concert.
“There are no hard feelings on our part,” Chadburn says. “I
feel bad that it can’t be as big as it could have been.”
“Whenever you do an event of that kind of size, it takes negotiating between all parties before coming up with a date,” Kelly says.
Although myTracks.com gave $5,000 for the concert, getting the band cost $10,000. WWPV had to cover the rest of the charge out-of-pocket, Chadburn says. It may cost WWPV up to $8,000 from its budget to pay for all the expenses of the concert, he says.
The S.A. is committed to supporting WWPV with anything the station needs to put on the concert, Monahan says. The S.A. is willing to help in any way possible, but this is WWPV’s concert, Monahan says. They did all the work, he says. Because the concert ended up being on P-Day, the S.A. is required to have some input on events during that day.
The most important thing is that people have a good time, Chadburn says. He hopes St. Michael’s students realize that WWPV and myTracks.com are providing the State Radio concert for the school, he says.
“This is our event,” Chadburn says. “This is not a P-Day event, but it is happening on P-Day.”