The Brown Concert Agency plans to reach out to music lovers and musicians alike through a new blog, audience surveys and more student concerts, the group's leaders said.
The board, which organizes Spring Weekend as well as a fall concert, hopes to work with groups such as Brown Television and the Coalition of Bands at Brown to reach out to the Brown community this fall.
"It was kind of like we were sitting in a castle and being disconnected from the student body, and that is not how we want to project ourselves," said Matt Weisberg '12, a BCA spokesman.
The board will start by creating a blog with a discussion forum to advertise events, post photos of shows, share songs and feature interviews with artists, said Agency Chair Akshay Rathod '10.
The BCA will also create "real-time audience-satisfaction e-mail surveys" directly after the fall event and Spring Weekend to get feedback, Rathod said.
To promote student bands, the board seeks to schedule on-campus student shows throughout the year. Auditions for next month's concert, which will host two to four bands, will be held in a few weeks. "We have the skills, we have the institutive knowledge," Rathod said. "Why limit ourselves?"
Seventeen bands tried out for the Battle of the Bands — the BCA's annual student band competition — last year during Spring Weekend, Rathod said. That's a sign that the Brown community is interested in student concerts, he said.
"There are a large number of musicians who want to play live music, but there is not really an avenue to do that," said co-stage manager Daniel Wiener '11, who helped plan the Battle of the Bands during last year's Spring Weekend.
"At heart, we're trying to foster and build a live music scene on campus," he said.
With the Underground in Faunce House under construction, the BCA was forced to find another venue for the concerts in Grad Center Lounge, Rathod said. But some board members believe this is an improvement over last year.
"Grad Center is a great space," said co-stage manager Jonathan Gordon '11. "It is fairly big so storage is taken care of and there is a nice outdoors area for people to enjoy."
