Bid Sent

The bid for Breaking Benjamin was approved by risk management and was faxed to our agent. Now we wait.

Also, we added some more information to the Weird Al post, and corrected an omission in the Survey 2 results.

Why didn't Weird Al win?

Didn't Weird Al get like double the votes and points than Breaking Benjamin. Why isn't Weird Al getting the first bid? -- Guest, The Daily Jolt

• Across both surveys the support was decidedly for music.
• The musical genre with the most votes was rock.
• SUNY Potsdam is trying to do a comedy show (Lewis Black). Rather than possibly compete for their attendance, the board felt it would be better to follow the data and cover a different market.

For reference here are the original survey results.

For the record, there were 99 comedy acts and 187 musical acts, a ratio of slightly less than 0.53. Applying that ratio to the results presented before yields the following results for comedy:

Act                 Raw Votes     Score
!!BLANK VOTE!!      834.75        3910.87
WEIRD AL YANKOVIC   96.99         703.31
BOB SAGET           91.69         675.75
DAVE ATTELL         67.31         436.72
STEPHEN LYNCH       59.89         421.35
COLIN MOCHRIE       56.18         400.68
ANDY DICK           49.82         309.52
JIM GAFFIGAN        38.16         287.79
CHARLIE MURPHY      36.57         246.98
NORM  MC DONALD     40.28         215.18

"So if you weren't going to do a comedy show regardless of how many votes any act received, why would you even offer it as a choice in your survey?" -- Anonymous, 8:17 AM

Yes, that exactly why on the survey with the acts on it we asked this:
"Based on the acts you selected above, would you rather see music or comedy?
Music 320
Comedy 105"

Yes, we neglected to post that in the actual survey results when we put them up. Sorry about that, we've since put that information up (even though it was in the results linked off the page). Sorry about that.

Bid Preperations

The board moved to approve a bid on Breaking Benjamin at last nights meeting. I'll be talking with the insurance office tomorrow (Wednesday) around noon; pending their approval we'll be sending the bid off to the band. The band can then either accept, reject or sit on the bid (sitting on a bid means they take their time to respond, sometimes this can be several weeks).

Before anyone asks, we are only allowed to extend one bid at a time. This avoids the situation where more than one act accepts a bid for the same show; a situation which could create date, cost and headlining issues.

If they reject the bid we either look at a different act, or rebid at a higher price (if we can afford it). Hopefully the fact that they had to back out on us last year will buy us some leverage in terms of price and speedy response.

If the bid is accepted we will receive a contract from the band which will then be reviewed and amended by insurance, and signed and returned to the band for their approval. Again, they can accept, reject or sit on it. Basically like any contract it can be bounced back and forth several times before a mutually satisfactory agreement is reached or one side gives up.

This is going to be a little brief as its Thanksgiving and all.

438 people attempted at least part of the survey. 87 of you either can't read, or attempted to circumvent the survey method. By which I mean, you voted for the same act in more than one position (IE: the fellow who voted for Ween 10 times). Adjusting for this, and accepting only highest ranking an act was given by any one respondent we have:

Music ( Top 11):

Act                    Raw Votes     Score
!!BLANK VOTE!!         724           3065
BREAKING BENJAMIN *    92            705
FLOGGING MOLLY *       92            669
DROPKICK MURPHYS *     85            516
GUSTER                 69            471
OUR LADY PEACE         81            468
HINDER                 62            408
SHINEDOWN *            64            376
BLOODHOUND GANG        65            370
REEL BIG FISH          62            361

Comedy (Top 11):

Act                    Raw Votes     Score
!!BLANK VOTE!!         1575          7379
WEIRD AL YANKOVIC      183           1327
BOB SAGET              173           1275
DAVE ATTELL            127           824
STEPHEN LYNCH          113           795
COLIN MOCHRIE          106           756
ANDY DICK              94            584
JIM GAFFIGAN           72            543
CHARLIE MURPHY         69            466
NORM  MC DONALD        76            406

Full rankings are in this file.

The raw raw vote counts are based on the number of people that selected a given act at any position in the survey.

Scoring is based on the number of votes received at each poll position times the value of that position. Meaning that selecting an act as your top choice gave that act 10 points, as your second best choice 9 and so on down to 1 point.

It is important to note that a large number of people failed to vote for any band or comedian, or failed to fill in all of the slots, which is what "!!BLANK VOTE!!" indicates.

Based on the acts you selected above, would you rather see music or comedy?
Music 320
Comedy 105

For the last several years CUB showed a pre-release movie every week in Cheel Commons, we stopped this year due to poor vendor support, high prices and generally low attendance. Movies are rather expensive (the volume discount is $450/week if we select films for the entire year). Do you agree with the decision to not show movies?
Yes 287
No 139

For the last several years CUB has done drive-in movies during the early part of the fall. We stopped doing these movies this year because the screens we were using last year were damaged by wind. We are considering the purchase of a different type of screen to address this issue so that we may hold these movies again this fall. The screens we are looking at are designed for outdoor use and cost between $4,000 and $8,000. Do you think purchasing such a screen is a good investment?
Yes 248
No 174

CUB is considering purchasing a number of tickets to the local cinema each week and providing them to the students free of charge. We envision a lottery, which students could enter at the beginning of each week; students would be allowed to request a limited number of tickets when enrolling in the lottery and the tickets would be made available for pickup afterwards. Obviously the viability of this depends on negotiations with the local cinema. Would you be interested in this?
Yes 288
No 133

Would you prefer the idea above (tickets to the local cinema) to the weekly movies CUB ran in Cheel?
Yes 216
No 206

Would you be interested in Club 99 having a karaoke machine and/or a karaoke night?
Yes 187
No 232

The comments are available here.

All of the raw data, as well as the scripts used to process it, their output and everything else used for this survey are available here. Be sure to check out the readme so that you know what the files mean.

If you find any issues with the method by which we computed the results, problems with the processing script, etc, please let us know.

Where do we go from here?
We'll look over these results, discuss them at our next meeting (which is Monday, at 6pm in Cheel Barben Room A) and then discuss them with our booking agent. With all that done we'll select an act to bid, get it approved by insurance and submit the bid. Of course the blog will be updated as more information is available.

Thanks for your help!

Survey 2 Out

As many of you have no doubt noticed the second round of surveys started filtering into peoples email boxes today. Please take the time to fill it out!

To clarify a bit about what we mean when we call something an 'insurance risk', basically this means we have concerns that the act could result in moshing, or similar behavior. Again this does not mean that we will not try to get the act in question, if selected, but that we will be more circumspect in doing so.

If you believe we have mislabeled an act as a risk, or there is an act on the list that is not labeled and should be, please leave a comment here.

For instance, the Disco Biscuits should not be labeled as a risk. Ooops.

To reiterate the risk assessment was made by the board at our weekly meeting. Its just an opinion, its certainly not set in stone.

What does a risky act mean for the show?
Possibly higher insurance costs and definitely more security. The long and short of the situation is that we cannot have moshing. If people mosh they will be warned, if they most again they will be ejected. If the situation escalates from there, we will have to stop the show. This is the university policy and sadly there is little we can do about it.

Whats next?
After this survey closes, at 11:59PM on the 21st, the board will look over the results, talk to our agent and bid a headlining act. This act will be selected based on the results of the survey, provided they are available etc. The results of this survey will be posted here, just like the results of the last one, along with any information regarding bids.

Why are some acts listed in this post not listed on the survey?
Acts with a cost of '$Call for Details' or availability of 'No College Dates' or 'No Current Plans' were removed.