By Matthew Preusch

Mike Sung ’00 got closer to flulfilling a four year dream on Wednesday when he made a bid to the agents of the Smashing Pumpkins, hoping to bring them to Pomona College. Sung offered the group $50,000, $34,000 of which the ASPC voted to allocate after he sold them on his proposal at Tuesday’s senate meeting.

Sung, the chairperson of CCLA’s committee on large concerts, will get the other $16,000 from that organization, which is an arm of the ASPC. An additional $20,000 will be needed once a band and date are secured, but Sung explained to the Senate that most of that sum is ‘day of’ costs, and can be covered by ticket pre-sale revenues.

"I’ve wanted to do a Smashing Pumpkins show for a long time; then, I got an e-mail from a middle manager saying that they were looking for smaller venues [to play at]," said Sung. The Pumpkins, who will be releasing an album within the next two months, are planning to do a more intimate show with no opening act.

"It will be along the same format as Dave Matthews was last year, except it will not be acoustic, of course," Sung explained.

At ASPC meetings on Tuesday and the previous week, most senators expressed support for the event and the prospective bands. If the Pumpkins reject the bid made by Sung, he will begin pursuing either Counting Crows or Radiohead as alternatives.

Sung thinks there is 50% chance of landing the Pumpkins. He explained that, although our venue matches their requirements, it is not a first rate auditorium and is in close proximity to a large urban center. "If you could play a gig in the middle of Los Angeles, why would you want to play all the way out in the middle of [Claremont]", said Sung.

Sung, who remembers the Message Festival of 1996, a large musical event at the Sontag Greek Theater that suffered poor ticket sales, believes that the three bands he is pursuing will have little problem getting attention and support at the Claremont Colleges.

In order to select the bands, Sung conducted a demographic survey to discover what type of shows have been popular at colleges with similar student bodies to ours, along with conducting a survey of Pomona students last year. In addition, he consulted music industry magazines, such as Pollstar, to find out which groups were selling well.

"I would give [the Pumpkins] an 85% chance of being a sellout," said Sung. ASPC President Richard Park ’00 said that in speaking to student government leaders from the other four colleges, he has received both verbal support and offers of funding for the event.

However, Sung will have to establish a date for the show before January 1, as planning for the concert will not be simple. "With a show of this magnitude and this much time commitment, we have to stick to our guns and really get down to work promoting it," he said. As Park explained, Big Bridges might become booked, and once the band is found there might be no date available for them to play.

The show, if a sellout, will net a profit of $10,000, which Sung hopes will be the beginnings of a permanent fund for large concerts. "I think every year before [ASPC] elections, the big gripe is about bringing a big band to campus, but there is no institution there to do that," said Sung.

Park, who supported the allocation of the $34,000 during senate deliberations, said that a committee could be created to manage such a fund, and that much of the money for future concerts could be pulled from the as-yet-untapped reserve fund.

"This reserve fund is pretty big, and it doesn’t get used for a lot of things except big shows [like the Pumpkins] or buying a new Sagehen shuttle," said Park. The fund is the net worth of the ASPC, or its assets minus its liabilities. The fund is currently at $120,906, though under current by-laws a Senate can only withdraw 25% of that sum in a fiscal year. However, a majority vote of the Senate can change that by-law.

Park said that the fund is likely to grow massively in the next few years because it is supported by receipts from the Coop Fountain and Cafe, which have only been in operation for a short time.

Profits from the concert, explained Park, will most likely be returned to those who donated to cover the costs on a percentage basis. A fund for future shows, however, could come from the growing reserve fund. The more successful the Pumpkins show is, said Park, the more likely the senate is to use the reserve fund to begin a budget specifically for large concerts.

The concern then becomes who will manage that fund, as Sung is a senior and will be leaving soon. Campus Center Directors Angela Crisp-Spears, Dave Swenson, and Neil Gerard are interested in bringing more big bands, but students like Sung will have to be involved.

"Every single person on the [CCLA Large Shows] committee has had no concert experience whatever, and I’m trying to teach them as fast as I can," admitted Sung.