Dave Matthews Band could play a free concert at NIU this November. Through a promotion with AT&T, NIU is one out of 100-plus schools vying to host the concert.

Students are asked to send “invitations” to the band via a Web site and the school with the most invitations sent by Oct. 15 will win the free show.

There is a wide variety of categories in which participants can submit an invitation.

You can write an essay with 2,000 characters or less, create a photo, shoot a 90 second video clip or record a three minute audio file explaining why Dave Matthews Band should play at NIU.

The concert would take place in November at the school that collects the most invitations, relative to the number of students who attend the school. NIU is currently in 31st place overall, with the U.S. Military Academy leading the way as of Thursday.

Year in and year out, Dave Matthews Band is the most requested band to play on the campus of NIU. In 2003, the Convocation Center was close to finalizing a Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds acoustic concert, but details fell through before anything could be finalized.

Students have already started a Facebook group, encouraging the NIU student body to make possible what would be the most well known band to play at NIU in recent memory.

“I thought it would be real cool if we win, and I thought the best way to get the message across would be to make a Facebook group,” said Facebook group creator and senior political science major, Daley Hamilton.

One of the submissions, by senior national oceanic & atmospheric administration major, Vittorio Gensini, was a copy of the Northern Star with the mock headline “DMB Set To Play At NIU.” On why he created the image, Gensini said, “Hopefully it would help other fans become excited and help join the voting process.”

If NIU wins, Hamilton added, “I’d feel like the students at Northern got together and made something amazing happen.”

To find out more information, including how to vote, visit the Dave Matthews Band’s Web site at www.dmband.com.