Dave Matthews Band fans one day might be able to celebrate the fact that the University of Illinois’ Assembly Hall might not be the only place to catch the popular group on an in-state college campus.

With the recent completion of NIU’s $35.8 million Convocation Center, and the possible formation of a new Student Association committee to focus on big-time entertainment – discussed at Sunday night’s SA Senate meeting – popular acts could come to DeKalb.

SA Treasurer Shaun Crisler attributed the bill on forming the committee to the changes that have occurred on campus.

“Me writing up the bill pretty much came from, I guess you could say, the increase of population of where our campus is going,” Crisler said. “We’ve now reached the 25,000-population threshold, which is pretty good.”

While the bill came up for approval at Sunday’s meeting, much heated debate was sparked over the need for the committee.

“People had reservations about it – some people were very against it,” said Brooke Robinson, SA director of public affairs. “Instead of sitting there and arguing about it endlessly, Senator [Frank] Woodin motioned to move it to the Internal Affairs committee for recommendations.”

Robinson said that much of the debate was over the conflicts that people think the committee will have with Campus Activities Board.

“Everybody has the impression that it’s supposed to replace CAB,” Robinson said. “It’s not.”

According to the SA bill, the reason for establishing the committee is because of an “identified lack of coordinated large-scale entertainment opportunities” on campus.

CAB, the main provider of entertainment for students on campus, has faced much criticism in the past for its inability to acquire big-name acts to perform on campus.

“Basically, the goal of big-time entertainment pretty much is to bring individuals who maybe wouldn’t look into CAB as a place to go,” Crisler said. “As far as the Convocation Center, it beats out Chick Evans [Field House], and hopefully with that we can get individuals who like big crowds.”

The committee, which would consist of five student members in good academic standing, would be hand-picked and appointed by the SA president, which currently is Kevin Miller.

What’s left for CAB

While there are no initial plans to cut funding from CAB or any other SA-recognized organization if the committee is formed, Crisler noted that this may not be the case in the future.

“The money taken to fund this committee [would] not [be] taken from CAB or any other organization,” Crisler said. “For the most part, [we would] be taking it out of the general reserves.”

Initial funding for the committee will be taken from the student activity reserve for the amount of $37,500. Funding from other organizations would not be affected as a result; however, future allocations most likely be effected.

“Because the $1.3 million we’re left to allocate [to all groups], it’s a set amount,” Crisler said. “The creation of a new organization could affect CAB’s funding or anybody’s funding.”

While the committee doesn’t expect to fund events by itself, co-sponsoring with other recognized organizations would help bring acts to campus, Crisler said.

“Every entity, for the most part, in the Student Association is a separate entity,” Crisler said. “Co-programming has never been a problem with organizations in our vicinity.”

While the first thought would have been to just allocate more money to CAB, Crisler said an SA-established committee will make bringing big acts to campus a continuing priority.

“As far as giving more money to CAB, I guess it’s kind of like one of those questions,” Crisler said. “If you have a bank account and it runs into deficit, it’s never a thought of how much money that you have, but the fact that you didn’t manage it. [The SA] giving the money to CAB wouldn’t assure the programs that we need for a population that’s going to pierce that 25,000-population threshold pretty soon.”

Going through changes

“The one thing that I know changes are students and equalness,” Crisler said. “There’s changes in the Northern Star, there’s changes in the Student Association, there’s changes with staff, there’s changes with a lot of things.

“The thing with this is that it makes sure that those changes are monitored by one person every year, kind of like a guarantee. Organizations – we have 250 of them – all can’t guarantee that they won’t fizzle out because that’s not the campus interest. The Student Association is going to be here as long as organizations are – the Student Association is going to be here with the president spear-heading that.”

With the addition of the arena and an increase in student population both being elements NIU can brag about, bringing large-scale acts to campus shouldn’t be a problem.

“You’re not going to get Creed or anybody else to play in Chick Evans,” Crisler said. “As far as this bill goes, as far as minority programming, what I’m looking at doing is to bring things to the university that normally you couldn’t bring. I won’t go to tractor shows, but I guarantee people in the area would come.”

Entertainment variety

Providing minority programming – events that normally wouldn’t be seen on campus – is another main goal of the committee.

“This isn’t geared just at concerts, this is geared towards speakers, entertainment and wrestling,” Robinson said. “People would love to see wrestling at the Convocation Center.”

The creation of the committee also would provide the gaps in programming that CAB cannot.

“If you look at the way CAB is set up, they’re set up to do specific things,” SA President Kevin Miller said. “CAB Concerts is not going to do monster truck rallies or WWE or whatever. It doesn’t seem to be in their mission and I think that’s what this committee would do.”

The bill would solve CAB’s problem, Miller said.

“It [would] fill in the things CAB can’t do because it doesn’t stick to the reason that they’re here. They program a lot, and they program in very specific areas. There are some they are just not able to program in, because they don’t have enough people.”

Robinson said that most things the committee hopes to provide don’t fall under any category in CAB’s set-up.

“[CAB has] like what, 14 divisions,” Robinson said. “What is WWE set under? It’s definitely not the Homecoming committee. It’s just one of those things that just does not fit into the 14 committees.”

Instead of asking CAB to develop a committee focusing on big-time entertainment, Miller said that forming the committee through the SA was the best approach.

“It’s my philosophy that I don’t like to go in and demand that student organizations do one thing or another,” Miller said. “If CAB wanted to do that, that would be their prerogative, but I don’t want to force them to do something because all of our student organizations are independent – they’re formed for a specific reason. I don’t think it’s our business or the university’s business to start mandating these various organizations.”

Had CAB presented the idea before the SA thought of it, Miller said it would’ve been considered.

“If CAB were to come forward and had a plan and said, ‘This isn’t working’ or ‘That’s not working and this is working really well we should build on it,’ I think they would have gotten perfect, fair consideration,” Miller said.

With a possible new committee gearing to provide large-scale entertainment to the NIU community, the question of CAB Concerts possibly becoming obsolete has arisen.

“That’s up to CAB,” Crisler said.

CAB was unable to comment at press time.