$35,000 student event nixed

The Associated Students of Portland State University are cancelling a $30,000 request in student fee funds, after difficulty in organizing a concert to raise voter registration awareness forced the student body to cancel the event.

The event, “Party to Vote,” was designed to get students at PSU to register to vote for the upcoming presidential election as well as showcase student groups on campus, according to ASPSU director of university affairs Virginia Vickery.

Originally scheduled as part of ASPSU’s annual “Big Feed” event designed for new PSU students to learn about student groups on campus, the concert was ‘doomed from the start’, Vickery said, because PSU had difficulties in securing contracts with artists ASPSU tried to contact.

The event was going to be multi-purpose, Vickery said–not only would students be able to see a free a concert, learn about student groups and register to vote, but also take part in a panel discussion with the artists about political issues.

The idea of a concert originated when Bobby Jones, a PSU student and employee of the 247 TownHall, a national non-profit organization, pitched the event to ASPSU president Hannah Fisher over the summer.

Aside from increasing student group visibility and voter registration awareness, the concert was also designed to showcase 247 TownHall, which would be heading the event with ASPSU–a notion that the student body lost somewhere along the way, Jones said.

Delays in organizing the event forced ASPSU to change musical artists two times before the final selection, the rapper Mos Def, was selected, Vickery said.

However, Vickery said that ASPSU had difficulty in getting in touch with Tommy Goodwin, Jones’ contact with the musical artists for the event.

Jones was initially reluctant to give ASPSU Goodwin’s contact information, and because of delays in getting possible contracts together, two musical artists, Talib Kweli and Jadakiss, passed on the event, Vickery said.

“Our advisors and accountants couldn’t get in touch with those people,” Vickery said. “The plan fell through because the contract wasn’t given to the university.”

Vickery said that before any university student group can work out a contract to bring a musical artist to campus, they must have money to offer to the artist. However, in order to put in a request with the student fee committee, there must a deal worked out with the artist first.

“It’s a kind of this catch-22 situation,” Vickery said.

Another event that led to the eventual cancellation of the concert was moving the event from the South Park Blocks to the Wonder Ballroom in Southeast Portland, Vickery said.

Vickery said that once the event’s headlining artist was selected, the price of the event went up. On top of that, Mos Def wanted the performance to be in a venue, which was a problem, she said.

“The Wonder Ballroom only holds 700 people,” she said. “That left no room for student groups. And the management wasn’t happy about the conversation part of it. So we stepped back and assessed the situation–students and student groups were no longer being served.”

Jones said ASPSU essentially used his own contacts and then shut out 247 TownHall from being a part of the event. Miscommunication between ASPSU, Goodwin and Jones was going to be addressed with a conference call between all planning parties set for Sept. 9, he said.

Jones called Vickery Sept. 8 and was told the event had been cancelled.

“I feel responsible,” Jones said. “I was going to get the talent, so I feel like now I have to be the one reaching out to the student groups, explaining what happened.”

Jones said he is unhappy with the way the event turned out.

“I feel like ASPSU betrayed the students and the student groups. Hannah needs to be held responsible as ASPSU president.” Jones said. “From the very beginning, this was one hundred percent my idea. I brought this idea to ASPSU.”

On top of the $30,000 requested from the SFC to hold the event, an additional $6,000 was going to be donated from 10 student groups, according to the reserve request submitted by ASPSU.

Vickery said since the SFC had to wait on a contract to be approved before they would give ASPSU the money, cancelling the request is just a formality. This year’s ASPSU’s Big Feed event will feature a local artist and student voter registration, she said.