Opinion Board | Spectacular shows

Last week, the Roots gave Penn students a fantastic show. The concert was sponsored by SPEC-TRUM, a branch of the Social Planning and Events Committee that organizes events geared toward the minority community on campus. SPEC-TRUM sold over 1,000 tickets to students, despite announcing the show barely a week before it occurred.

Meanwhile, SPEC spent weeks on Locust Walk promoting their fall concert (headlined by Ben Kweller), but couldn't manage to sell even close to as many tickets as SPEC-TRUM did.

This isn't to say SPEC hasn't hosted successful fall concerts in the past - they have. But let's face it, SPEC has a well-established history of making hit-or-miss choices, and there's only so many times SPEC-TRUM can book the Philly-based Roots (they also played in 2004 at Amy Gutmann's inauguration).

The Penn community would be far better served if SPEC and SPEC-TRUM pooled their budgets and resources to book one big-name group or artist for the fall. Rather than hosting two concerts (one with a lackluster promotion effort) SPEC could focus their energy around one highly anticipated event, similar in scope to Spring Fling.

SPEC is currently considering doing exactly that for the spring semester in order to book the best entertainment they possibly can for Spring Fling. At the very least, they should institute this change for one semester every year.

This isn't to say that SPEC-TRUM should be dissolved - far from it. The committee should be applauded for the work they do and for consistently hosting successful events. Nor does it mean that the new super-event shouldn't cater to a diverse crowd.

Rather, SPEC-TRUM's input and recommendations should be incorporated into SPEC's selection process to avoid repeats of disasters like Sonic Youth (who performed at 2005's Spring Fling for a whopping 300 students).

Who knows, maybe SPEC will even sell out the show.

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