Dierks Bentley will visit Tech as a replacement for SOLO concert vote winner Eric Church.
Voting results last spring placed Church as the performer for the fall concert. However, Church will not be performing at Tech anytime soon. Bentley, students’ second choice, will be performing this semester instead.
“I am very upset that we are getting Dierks Bentley instead of Eric Church,” senior Alex Brown said. “I don’t see the point in voting for something if we never get the performer we vote for. Why don’t they just get somebody to perform instead of getting our hopes up and letting us down? I don’t see the need in the hassle.”
This is not the first time the SOLO Committee hasn’t been able to procure the student-selected performer in the short history of the SOLO Bill. The first performer to win the vote, Maroon 5, turned down the bid, leaving it up to the Goo Goo Dolls. LMFAO also did not perform, leaving the bid to rapper B.o.B.
“When we originally put people in the selection process, Eric Church was in our price range,” SGA Vice President Roy West said. “As soon as the votes came out, his price tripled overnight, and so he was no longer in our price range, so we couldn’t afford to have him perform.”
The artist selection for student voters is comprised by a third party agent contracted by the SGA who compiles a list of performers they believe can be obtained by the SOLO fund. Then, SGA members narrow down the list to fit the next genre in the SOLO rotation.
“There is always a different reason every year why we don’t get performers,” West said.
