Wyclef Jean. Busta Rhymes. Ben Harper. George Clinton.
Each year the Social Planning and Events Committee organizes the annual Spring Fling concert and brings in a big-name group. Yet, compared to other universities, Penn holds relatively few concerts.
At Cornell University, in addition to having Slope Day, which is similar to Penn's Spring Fling, there is a Concert Commission that puts on four to six concerts each year.
Last year, Kanye West, OAR and Dilated Peoples performed at Slope Day, and during this past fall semester, They Might Be Giants, Dashboard Confessional and Reel Big Fish all played on Cornell's campus as well.
"This concert board has one of the better reputations in the country for bringing in big name acts," said Joe Scaffido, advisor to the Cornell Concert Commission.
At the University of Southern California, the Program Board organizes four concerts each year -- Welcome Back, Homecoming, Troy Week and Spring Fest. Artists that performed at USC last semester included Blackalicious, Kinky and They Might Be Giants. In addition, the school hosts a noontime concert series six to eight times a semester to give exposure to small local bands, according to Program Board Director Enrique Trujillo.
One of the primary reasons Penn holds fewer concerts is that SPEC Concerts has a limited budget.
"Concerts cost a lot of money and SPEC's budget does not stretch as far as people would like," Director of Student Life Fran Walker said, pointing out that putting on a concert can be as expensive as $150,000 to $200,000.
In addition, Penn does not have many suitable venues where concerts can be hosted. Irvine Auditorium can only accommodate approximately 1,200 people. The acoustics at the Palestra are not very suitable for concert performances.
"Only big, outdoor concerts are really possible," Walker said.
College senior Tom Kurland, one of the directors of SPEC Concerts, agrees. "The philosophy is to try to bring in a much larger audience by holding concerts at larger venues."
In addition, being a city school does not help Penn's chances of attracting artists.
Penn has to compete with various concert venues in Philadelphia such as the Wachovia Center and the Electric Factory.
"Cornell doesn't have any competition being where it is," Walker said. "At Penn, the situation is that bands would much rather go to a big stadium or big concert hall than they would when they come to Penn because our facilities are not designed for concerts."
Other urban universities around the nation also suffer from the same conflicts.
For example, USC must compete with concert venues in Los Angeles, and Northwestern University must compete with venues in Chicago.
"The city in general attracts huge amounts of folks in terms of concerts and things," said Helen Wood, director of the Center for Student Involvement at Northwestern University. "It's such a big city so we do lose [performances] to that so that can be frustrating."
Trujillo notes similar issues. "We're trying to compete as a student organization," Trujillo said. "A lot of people think that since we're in L.A. we have easier access to a lot of the bigger names ... but the truth of the matter is that there are so many venues ... if [an artist] is in California, chances are they'll be selling out a big arena."
