Oct.14 marked the end of voting for the first stage for spring’s biannual big concert, sponsored by the Campus Activities Board (CAB). Students had the opportunity to vote on twelve options: Jason Derulo, Gavin DeGraw, Chiddy Bang, Iron & Wine, Mike Posner, Sara Bareilles, Matt Nathanson, J. Cole, O.A.R., Jack’s Mannequin, Matt & Kim and Switchfoot. The process did not begin and does not end here, however.

CAB sponsors one big concert every spring during even years, and during odd years a big speaker. In 2010, Lupe Fiasco was the big concert and in 2008 it was Ben Folds. During the Gustavus-only ticket sale period for Lupe Fiasco, 800-900 tickets were sold, and two-thirds of the Ben Folds tickets had sold out within the first three weeks of sale. The big concerts have a record of being popular with Gustavus students and with the community.

The process for choosing the bands involves all students through an e-mail survey and the final voting. Students who wish to have more of an impact are invited to be a part of the “big concert” committee, which is open to everyone.

“We’ve been working since last spring on deciding who the options for the vote would be. We took suggestions from the committee, students and the e-mail survey. We explored all of the options and found out who was in our price range, and took that list back to the committee to narrow down,” CAB Co-President and Senior Accounting Major Hannah Fischer said.

Fischer said there is a core group of about 25 students who have been attending committee meetings since last year and are really dedicated to the project.

Their work, along with student input and CAB efforts, produced the list mentioned above. The reaction to the list was mixed, as was expected.

“The student body seems really split on the bands,” Laura Grossman, CAB publicity executive and junior communication studies major, said.

Students have shown their strong opinions through Letters to the Editor (see last week’s issue of The Gustavian Weekly) and Facebook events attempting to unite students under one artist (Vote For Jack’s Mannequin).

“I think people are having a lot of trouble deciding. People would come to the table and look so overwhelmed,” Fischer said.

Some students expressed their frustration with the vast amount of options.

“I think they tried to overcompensate for 2010’s discontent over the big concert [Lupe Fiasco] by having too many choices which spreads out the vote, causing another potentially unhappy student body. But, people are always going to find something to complain about,” Anna Yost, senior biology major, said.

Other students have trouble even finding one artist in the lineup that they want to vote for.

“I understand that CAB is trying to offer a broad range of genre choices. In [their] attempt, they’ve actually selected mostly slightly different versions of radio-friendly pop music,” Tasha Ostendorf, junior psychology major and music enthusiast said. “For lack of a better term, it just sucks to always know that the underdog will never win.”

Despite the discontent voiced, there are still a lot of students who are excited about the prospect of a major recording artist visiting the Gustavus campus.

“The whole point of the big concert is that a lot of people enjoy it. I think CAB has been trying to do their best and make the process as fair as they can,” Allison Alsaker, senior Russian studies major and music aficionado, said. “It would be cool to have a big name artist come to Gustavus.”

“Everyone pays the student activities fees. [We let everyone vote] because our main mission is to get what the students want,” Fischer said.

Fischer urges students to check out the top five choices when the list is released, and be sure to give their opinion in the final vote, the week of Oct. 31.