While we couldn’t be more pleased to hear about the celebrities performing at the University this fall, we can’t help but wonder how some of the decisions regarding the shows were made.

Students seem glad to have Gloriana, Jack Ingram and Tyler Hilton visiting us in just a few short weeks. They seem even happier to have Kenan Thompson coming for Center Stage and Avicii for the fall concert.

However, the timing of the fall concert seems a little confusing to us as students. With a concert scheduled for a Sunday night, we worry that many students will blow off work due on Monday or even skip their morning classes. With a group of students as academically and socially driven as we are, students will be stretching themselves thin in order to finish their work, attend the concert and carry on with all of their regular social and extracurricular activities. Adding a concert to a Sunday night will only encourage students to extend their weekends, rather than take Friday or Saturday night off to do their homework. Some students are even feeling concerned that tests, presentations and other assignments may coincide with the concert date.

In addition to students feeling slighted by the change in their social calendars, some students are enraged at the timing of ticket sales opening. With a portion of the concert being paid for by student activities fees, it seems unfair that tickets will go on sale to the public at the same time as they will to students. In reality, students subsidize the concert for the public through those fees and deserve the extra time to purchase their tickets before anyone else. Many students are concerned that they won’t even be able to get a ticket to the concert with Avicii being such a popular artist and this new ticket policy.

Beyond the injustice students are feeling at their schedules being upturned and the disregard for their subsidization, the amount of money being spent to bring Avicii to campus seems exorbitant. The total cost of the concert will be $100,000, with Avicii’s performance costing $90,000 and the lighting package $10,000. Although Avicii gave the University a discounted price, the total price of the concert is higher than the Concert Committee usually spends. The amount being spent on lighting also seems astronomical. Ten percent of the concert’s total cost isn’t being spent on the artist; it’s being spent on lights? We find this to be a waste of our activities fees, our ticket payments and even the public’s ticket payments.