With this year’s National Act behind us, we at The Bachelor think that our most expensive student event is in need of a breath of fresh air. Most of campus, including the Student Body President-elect, have already floated the idea of rethinking National Act. Let’s take this opportunity as a campus to think about how to reshape National Act to fit the current student body and promote campus unity.
Discussions of changing National Act have floated around campus for years now. We’ll acknowledge it—we’ve pushed the issue as an editorial staff this semester. Now that the event has passed, with student feedback and fun photos, we return to the issue once more.
Of course, as we’ve covered in news stories earlier this semester, one of the primary criticisms of National Act as-is is financial. The event comprised 37% of the student senate budget this semester. That’s 75 dollars from every. single. student. For one evening.
For the years ahead, we think there are other options. For an example of a comparable yet much cheaper option, look no further than Lambda. At the afterparty for National Act, more than 900 people congregated around Old Colony for hours.
Who is Old Colony? We certainly didn’t know before the party. And that’s a bit of the point. No, Old Colony does not have a feature on a Demi Lovato song—but they cost $1,000, a far lower cost than Cheat Codes.
We think this demonstrates a new option. Call it Wabash Woodstock, LiveAID or Coachella—a series of unknown, up-and-coming artists at far cheaper rates. Take a weekend and hold a series of live performances instead of a one-stop shop. Like EDM? Great, there’s an option. Country music? An option. Lowering the stakes—and the costs—of choosing the “perfect” artist would help create a stronger, much more memorable and well-attended event.
Some of these artists will be total busts. But we’d take a $1,000 bust over $60,000 bust, especially when there’s another live music option just a few hours later.
This is, of course, just one option. We join President-elect Bergman in calling for a campus-wide conversation about what we want out of National Act going forward.
None of this is supposed to be a gotcha or a “we told-you so.” Far from it. Plenty of Wabash students and their dates had a fabulous time, and we of course have no quarrel with that. We hope only to spark a united campus conversation about how to shape this event in the years to come.