The Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) Social Committee (SC) will hold its annual Winter Carnival at Eclectic this Saturday. The featured acts will include performances by Jean Grae and a two-man band called “Mates of State.” Grae will also organize an opening act with some fellow artists.
“We want to have a free concert accessible to the whole campus and that speaks to many different musical tastes,” said President of the SC Alex Escamilla ’05.
According to Grae’s official website, she was named “the best kept secret on New York’s indie hip hop scene” by Rolling Stone magazine.
“Mates of State” is comprised of an organ, drums and vocals. According to their website, they describe themselves as “difficult to place in a genre as the song structures are unique, often complex while at the same time there are always the pop elements of catchy melodies and loads of harmony.”
The SC experienced a few setbacks over the past few months in finding an indoor venue for the event other than MoCon. The drawback of MoCon is that the fire code limit is 500 yet the capacity is about 2000; Escamilla said this excess space can feel “empty and echoey.”
The Winter Carnival event receives substantially less funding from the Student Budgetary Committee (SBC) compared to funds allocated for Spring Fling. This is a limiting factor in attracting the most desirable artists.
Although Eclectic’s maximum capacity is only 300, which may limit students from attending, Escamilla said that it is a better venue than Mocon.
“The Eclectic Society is thrilled that the Winter Carnival is being held here this week. We are honored to play host, as a venue, to such an event,” said Elaine Garven ’05, President of the Eclectic Society. “I can’t speak to the Social Committee’s decision to use Eclectic instead of MoCon, but I am sure that factors such as the feel of the venue and the cost played into their decision. I think that students prefer holding events here because not only is Eclectic a more comfortable space to hang out in, but because we make it easy and affordable for students.”
Garven also recognized the lack of indoor student space on campus.
“As a house, we’re in the unfortunate situation of being one of the most popular venues for student events,” Garven said. “We also have to strike a balance between offering residents a pleasant place to live and making ourselves accessible to student groups that need a place for events. In the past few years there have been very few weekends where there hasn’t been an event here. We are flooded with space use requests.”
Because of the frequent use of the house, the Eclectic society maintains very high standards for the venue. Garven said that holding large events in their house invariably causes damage to the house.
“Because Eclectic is liable for any usage of our house, we have stringent requirements for groups that do use the space,” Garven said. “We do not charge students for the space but we do expect strict adherence to University Social Event policy. We also expect student groups to return the space to the condition in which they found it, that is, to clean the space and pay for any damages incurred to the house during the event.”
Eclectic has allowed groups to use the house for large concerts similar to this in the past, such as the J-Live concert, the Aesop Rock concert and the concert by Mr. Lif. Eclectic also traditionally rents the space to the Queer Social Committee for the National Coming Out Day Party in the fall and the Queer Prom in the spring.
Because the Social Committee does not receive funding from the SBC for the Winter Carnival until late in the semester, Escamilla says it is difficult for them to organize the event. For this reason, she feels that it is unlikely that the Social Committee will hold a winter event next year.
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