There are two distinct groups that will be celebrating Diadeloso on Thursday. The campus crew and the 10th Streeters. The challenge in planning an event such as this is finding a way to make groups with obvious differences want to come together. The most obvious being booking a performer that will bridge the differences.
While Needtobreathe makes great music, they simply do not accomplish this task.
While the band sounds like a great sit-down-with-a-cup-of-coffee group, it is not a band that keeps with the fun and lively atmosphere students expect on Dia. Not to mention they played at Common Grounds only four months ago.
We know there is a limited budget, though Baylor Chamber of Commerce, the organizing group behind Diadeloso, wouldn’t share exactly how much that was since they didn’t want to lock in a number for future performers to expect.
While they described their budget as reasonable but not nearly the size of other institutions, The Lariat did some research and found the booking price for Needtobreathe is in the $75,000 – $100,000 range, according to Celebrity Talent International.
According to Chamber representatives, the process of searching for an artist began in April/May of last year, and the band was locked down in November.
Chamber outsources a media consulting firm called Propeller to analyze social media trends and help narrow down the pool of potential artists. The company focuses on secular artists who identify with the Christian message as well as strictly Christian artists.
Chamber said of the thousands of artists that are eligible to come to campus, two of the main factors that limit the choices are cost and artist availability. Once the general collection of artists is narrowed down, a Student Activities board made up of 44 student leaders from various campus organizations were asked questions to find what types of music they like and which bands they had heard of, but were never specifically asked who they would like to see perform at Dia.
While it seems as though Chamber did its due diligence in choosing a performer, the process still didn’t yield a favorable result. They should look to mend the process in the future so that the maximum number of students can enjoy a day together.
Since Chamber neglected to provide us with a list of potential bands and could not remember any of the other options in this year’s pool of candidates, we took the estimated booking price of Needtobreathe and compared it to other artists.
Some of our top picks who were either equal to or lesser in cost included New Found Glory, Sugar Ray, The Randy Rogers Band, Skillet and Rick Springfield.
Chamber focuses the majority of its talent search on what bands are on the rise, who they expect to be trending at the time of the show and what bands have new music out, as Needtobreathe does. While we are all for fresh tunes, an event like Dia should have a performer that makes people want to get up, dance and sing along.
In choosing artists based on appropriateness, Chamber said they looked at what is proclaimed in the lyrics and what they found about them on Google. They said they considered performers on a case-by-case basis, as there are no real parameters set for who they can and cannot hire.
While off-campus activities have been known to draw thousands of people to 10th Street, Chamber said it does not think outside events deter people from coming to campus on Dia. Chamber will use micro-mini pigs, tournaments and food trucks in hopes that these in combination with their musical performer will draw people back to campus.
To Chamber, it seems as though every band is either on the rise and peaking, in which case they want them; established but too expensive; or on their way out of popularity and Chamber doesn’t want to book them. Even with the monetary and content restrictions, there are still bands that would better appeal to a mass variety of students.
