A Time of Disconcert

Tuesday night’s news that the Harvard Concert Commission’s (HCC) Nov. 6 Wyclef Jean concert has been cancelled is sure to arouse both disappointment and disbelief across the Harvard community. We were genuinely excited at the concert’s prospects for success when we editorialized in favor of it last week, and we are disillusioned by the recent turn of events.

Our optimism was based on our faith in the HCC’s planning and aptitude, based largely on initial signals of success that were not only misleading but proved to be incorrect. In reporting to us the first-day ticket sales, the HCC (unintentionally) provided inflated figures. We were told that in the first hour of availability 612 tickets were sold; in reality, that number was only 112 tickets. While this information was passed along with the best of intentions—and though we may still have opined optimistically—we were excited about a level of student enthusiasm that simply did not exist.

Despite the significant disappointment of going without a fall concert, the HCC did the most prudent thing on Tuesday night by canceling the show. Although going forward with Wyclef may have provided an opportunity for the HCC to save face, their decision to cancel dramatically limited the financial charges that would have been incurred. The HCC already will lose $30,000, a liability that could have reached as high as $65,000 if planning continued unabated. The money to finance this loss would have had to materialize from some annex of the Undergraduate Council’s (UC) budget, funds that we believe will enrich student social life more than a failed concert bailout. The HCC, according to Chairman Jack P. McCambridge ’06, already stood to lose $30,000 in subsidizing the concert, and the decision to limit losses to this figure is a judicious one.

That being said, the HCC has clearly and egregiously failed at its mandate twice in as many tries over the last six months. Moreover, on both occasions the event fell apart in the immediate run-up to the concert. While we realize that the nature of both cancellations were completely different—external obstacles clearly contributed to last spring’s Snoop Dogg debacle—both instances still cost the UC thousands of student dollars. Not only was close to $40,000 wasted for both Wyclef and Snoop, it is even more upsetting because the UC’s just-completed termbill hike was partially justified on the grounds that it would improve concert events. Now, the community as a whole need to take a long look at every aspect—from structure to accountability—of the HCC before anything further is done.

Both UC President Matthew J. Glazer ’06 and Vice President Clay T. Capp ’06 guaranteed Tuesday night that the council would examine the HCC and its role in the most recent debacle. “On one hand, it’s all on the table,” said Capp. The Harvard community should pressure Capp to put his money—actually, his constituent’s money—where his mouth is and call for a complete overhaul of the HCC. In particular, we believe that the UC should institute direct elections of the commission.

At present, the HCC is an insular and self-preserving arm of the UC. The outgoing Chairman picks his or her successor upon vacating the office. Unimpressively, the most recent watershed reform to the HCC was the election of commission members by the UC. Under this system, no member of the HCC is even marginally accountable to the student body in any meaningful way.

When asked on Tuesday night if, in light of the tepid student interest for Wyclef, research could have prevented such misappraisals of student buzz, McCambridge casually cited “some Crimson article” from 2004 as research that reported student’s top musical choice to be Wyclef. In actuality, the March 8, 2004 article, “Wyclef Voted Top Choice for Concert,” covered a UC-representative-only vote on an HCC-written list of potential performers for the spring 2004 concert. That McCambridge attempted to pass this off as a student referendum is further proof that the HCC needs a higher-degree of accountability.

Such accountability, as well as more transparency and oversight, can be achieved through converting the HCC into a democratic body. A democratic process will encourage student polling and campus-wide research before multi-thousand dollar projects are undertaken. We disagree with McCambridge, who in response to criticisms that the HCC should have polled prior to pursuing Wyclef, only replied that, “It hadn’t been done before.” Instead, the HCC opted to survey student interest based on anecdotal evidence and informal chats. It comes as little surprise that the HCC failed to satisfy students with such a paltry feint at research. Given the amount of money that the HCC has hemorrhaged on their most recent endeavors, the student body deserves the chance to choose both a more invested and competent HCC.

The move to a democratic HCC should happen immediately, coinciding with the UC presidential elections. Candidates should campaign both on their credentials planning similar events and the musical performers that they want to bring to Harvard. Students will then be able to vote for competence and preference with one swoop of their mouse.

An HCC that is accountable to the student body will better articulate the student body’s musical preferences, be more careful with their money, and be compelled to take responsibility for both successes and failures. With tens of thousands of dollars at stake, the student body deserves nothing less.