Editor's Note

We didn’t give Joe College Day much coverage this year. And there’s a reason for that.

The Duke University Union has proven itself capable, time and time again, of pulling off impressive, well-funded and well-executed events that students attend and enjoy; but yet, sometimes it seems like the organization is ignoring the lessons that should be most obvious, lessons learned from its own programming.

Take the Coffeehouse. So far this year, the Coffeehouse has held easily the best non-Duke Performances concert I’ve seen, September’s Titus Andronicus/Free Energy show. The concert was packed, the bands were tremendous and students got in for free. Neither of those groups are big names, but the Coffeehouse isn’t a big venue, so they don’t need to be; they just have to have a certain draw, and to a particular crop of music listeners the pairing was irresistible.

Then compare this with Joe College. Part of the reason we gave it so little press was mystification at the line-up—an emo band like Cute is What We Aim For seemed ill-suited to headline an outdoor concert, and openers Theophilus London and Anya Marina didn’t have the pull to get enough students out there that then might stick around for the finale. Not only did the top of the bill lack the sense of being an event, but the average Duke student, from what I’ve heard, couldn’t find excitement in any of the acts.

Stopping by toward the second half of Anya Marina’s set, I saw maybe a few dozen students clustered around the stage, and people I’ve talked to said that such emptiness was the day’s norm. Regardless of whether it was cold, and regardless of what time it might’ve been, a concert will always be judged by how many showgoers attend in relation to the venue. At a Main Quad event like Joe College, this becomes even more obvious and important, and by such a metric the event failed.

Identifying the average student points to the first place where Joe College went wrong. The Coffeehouse succeeds by knowing its audience and booking bands with some appeal. For an event like Joe College, which needs to draw in a significant swath of students to fill its space, the priority is getting bodies, and that means either hooking an artist that’s widely known or someone with a particularly passionate core of listeners.

Rather than showcasing three performers who are more or less irrelevant to Duke students, DUU could try and get a few artists of impeccable quality but less popular reputation and hope that excited students bring their friends out. Or, they could stock the schedule earlier in the day—when there’s more likely to be a crowd for Joe College’s other attractions—with student performers and cheap local groups and go for broke on one act at night.

One can always cite money as an issue, and it is, but with enough research good bands can be found at most prices. And making schedules cohere is another obstacle, but you can do far worse than Duke for a gig.