When the Student Finance Board (SFB) approved the College Union Board's (CUB) bid to bring musical artist Gavin DeGraw to the College, students believed they had a fall concert to look forward to.
What the College community did not realize is that there is no guarantee as of now, that the concert will happen.
"It is not definite that he is coming," Caitlin Gaughan, director of CUB, said. "He has not agreed to anything, and anything can happen at this point."
The bid given by SFB is only one step in a multi-step process CUB uses to bring acts to the College. After receiving the bid, CUB makes an offer to the performer. The performer then has three to four weeks to respond to the bid.
"Once we send out an offer, we basically just sit tight and hope they will accept," Gaughan said.
The ideal date for the concert, which CUB members voted on, is Friday Nov. 4. CUB's original October dates for the concert were nixed when DeGraw announced that he would be switching his tour dates to open for Sheryl Crow. Alternate dates for the concert are Nov. 5 and 8 if DeGraw is unavailable for CUB's first choice.
Although DeGraw has had popular radio singles such as "Follow Through" and "Chariot," some students were curious as to how CUB chose this artist in particular.
"CUB utilized facebook.com to seek where campuswide interest lies," Danielle Mercurio, senior biology major and CUB member, said. "He was one of the few artists that fit both in our price range and schedule."
DeGraw's name appeared in an overwhelming amount of student profiles under the "Favorite Music" section on facebook.com.
Another popular group was O.A.R., the band CUB originally tried to obtain for the concert.
"Students may have heard the rumors that O.A.R. was coming to campus," Gaughan said. "We did try and bring them, but it was just another example of how sometimes (everything) doesn't work out and an act can refuse the offer."
After receiving bids for $10,000 extra from other schools, O.A.R. requested an additional $10,000 from CUB, putting it out of the College's price range.
CUB also gauges student interest by distributing surveys, placing suggestion boxes at its events and inviting students to submit requests via the CUB Web site and e-mail.
After the Kevin Lyttle concert last year, which was less than successful, and a succession of punk/emo groups such as Matchbook Romance and Less Than Jake over the past two years, CUB was looking for something different to offer the campus community.
In addition to O.A.R, CUB considered bands like Dropkick Murphys and Guster, but ultimately, neither band matched the interest of DeGraw.
"We usually get artists who are either on their way up or on their way down," Gaughan said.
According to Gaughan, for CUB, DeGraw is fortunately "right in the middle."
While CUB wished to hold a concert that would produce a large turnout, the largest venue, the Recreational Center, was not an option.
Solid bookings, as well as the expenses of crew and staging, steered CUB toward Kendall Hall, a location more suited for a singer/songwriter act like DeGraw.
Gaughan wants to again stress to the student body, however, that it is not definite that DeGraw is coming, but that CUB will keep students notified.
"We will know more information in the upcoming weeks," Gaughan said. "Anything can happen."
