During the fall, Phish front man Trey Anastasio’s agents expressed his interest in performing at Syracuse University this spring, making SU one of only four campuses the artist specifically requested.

Anastasio clearly hasn’t hit the Goldstein Auditorium stage yet, and with only five weeks left in the semester, it doesn’t look like he’ll be coming at all, despite his interest.

‘We weren’t allocated our funds, so we couldn’t act on it,’ said Adam Gorode, co-chair of University Union Concerts.

The scenario is one of many that have influenced UU to seek yearly funding from the Student Association, rather than being funded per semester, for the 2005-2006 academic year.

UU is working on amendments to funding rules to present to the SA cabinet next week, said UU president Dennis Jacobs. UU is requesting to receive its budget allocations in the fall for both semesters, though it will not be able to spend its spring budget until spring, Jacobs said.

‘The idea of annual funding has been thrown around all this year,’ Jacobs said. ‘ … Especially this year with everything coming in late.’

Due to internal wrangling and debate in the Finance Board and SA, UU did not receive its spring budge allocation until February.

Not having a budget for spring available made it difficult to book performers because they route their spring tour stops in September and October, and pulling a performer out of his pre-set travel becomes more expensive, Jacobs said.

‘We are in contention with other universities and the rest of the entertainment world to book acts,’ Jacobs said.

The unknown element surrounding the spring budget is ultimately what cost UU and SU an Anastasio performance.

‘When we received (the bid) from them, we didn’t know how much money we were dealing with, so we had to pass that up,’ Jacobs said.

A Jon Stewart performance also fell to budget inflexibility at SU, while schools such as Cornell University, with its yearly budget, hosted the comedian.

Because of the late funding, UU was only able to book the Dome for one date, preventing it from giving some flexibility to Stewart’s agents, said Speakers co-chair Chad Bender.

‘When you’re going after big name people, you have to go after those bids way in advance,’ Bender said. ‘It really put a time press on us, especially when it takes two to three weeks to get the bids back.’

Ninety percent of schools with comparable UU programs receive their funding on a yearly basis, Gorode said.

‘We’re playing catch-up with all the other schools,’ he said.

A lot of students want to see bigger acts, Jacobs said, and performers like Maroon 5, Green Day or comedian Kevin James aren’t unrealistic expectations if UU is given the time afforded by a yearly budget, he said.

‘It’s so frustrating to hear students saying, ‘We want bigger artists,’ and it’s because of a policy that gives money too late … you can’t imagine how frustrating it is, because it’s such a simple problem,’ Gorode said.

In the past, UU’s large budget has been a topic of concern at Finance Board meetings.

‘We understand UU takes a large portion of the money. Every single Finance Board meeting that always comes up … we never said that we don’t,’ Jacobs said. UU is carefully looking at all concerns that others might have about the change, he said.

In addition to the yearly budget plan, UU has discussed having its funding be separate from the student activity fee, though that is not necessarily what it will be pursuing, Bender said.

Yearly funding will dramatically improve the programming across the board, Bender said. Talent rates increase in January, so booking early would help insure higher quality performers at a lower cost, he said.

Jacobs is optimistic SA will move the amendments through, saying that everyone has seemed open-minded.

‘If we don’t move to a yearly budget, we’ll be facing the same problems again,’ Bender said.

Published on April 5, 2005 at 12:00 pm