Programming and Activities Council (PAC) at Colorado Mesa University is annually faced with the challenge of putting on events that are fun, memorable and cater to a large variety of people. One of the biggest challenges they face is the concert, and despite there being numerous obstacles in lieu of the 2019 Spring Concert, it was still a success.
Let’s start with this: PAC makes this concert free to students. Free. Anyone who truly celebrates concert season and/or attends music festivals regularly knows that this is not cheap.
How much would any of us have to pay to go see any of these artists, were they not performing at our school? Add in the inevitable cost of travel and how much would we have to spend now?
PAC gives us the opportunity to enjoy music, friends and fun, for no additional cost to students. Celebrate that. When you have that, who cares who’s playing?
While not all will view the concert experience so positively, at least PAC manages to book artists that students know. Sure, maybe not everybody liked Lil Yachty or Juicy J or American Authors or any of the headliners over the past few years, but at least we knew who they were. And PAC got them to come to Grand Junction to perform. Would any of these artists make a performance in Grand Junction without them? Probably not.
Noah Stahlecker for the Criterion 
Casey Smith for the Criterion
And they do a good job with facilities, safety and events going on in the concert venue. Sure there’s still going to be those who are throwing up outside of the entrance, getting pulled out of the crowd by security because they’re behaving in an unsafe way, et cetera, et cetera.
However, PAC made sure that there could be a beer garden and a 21+ section, they made sure there was security there to keep people safe and they made sure that water and restroom facilities were provided.
They had to communicate with managers and booking agencies and insurance for events, artists dropping out of the lineup, so much nonsense, just for an inexcusable number of the student body to criticize their hard work.
Sure, I think we can all agree that the comedian was pretty bad. But honestly, he wasn’t that bad. And he was a last-minute fill-in for RIP Michaels, so cut the people who plan CMU’s entire social calendar some slack, okay?
And from backstage, it looked like the crowd was having a really fun time. Drake Bell performed and all of our inner children felt like it was a dream come true. That alone is a home-run. Everyone was jumping up and down, laughing, smiling, having fun. And at the end of the day, that’s all PAC really tries to do with this concert- give students a last hurrah of memories together before finals and summer and saying goodbye.
We only have a few short years to celebrate being Mavericks, and these are the moments we’re going to remember years from now. Appreciate what is in front of you, and stop complaining. It isn’t about who’s on stage, it’s about who’s standing next to you in the crowd.
