Does Having a Big Budget Result in a Good Audience Turnout?

Lancer Productions (LP) is the primary student planning organization on Longwood's campus. They plan many events for students to participate in during the course of the school year. However, putting on many different events a year can get costly. Cameron Patterson, newly elected Student Government Association (SGA) president and president of LP said, "We put on about 80 events a year and most of it is showing the movies on Friday and Sunday." But does having a lot of events equal high attendance? According to LP's Web site, the attendance numbers for their events have not been updated since spring 2006. Attendance at most of their movies is around 100 students, and any other activity held in the student union is usually less than that. Despite this, LP does manage to find some different talents to come and entertain students throughout the school year. However, these acts, such as hypnotists and magicians, come at a price.

For the 2008-2009 school year, LP asked SGA for $249,006 and received $231,447. For the 2009-2010 school year they asked for $248,885 and received (so far) $239,211. "We are given a large amount of money from SGA in order to help ourselves and other student groups," said Patterson.

However, at the final SGA meeting for the year on April 21, LP's entire conference budget was cut by SGA Senator T. Jordan Miles III. This included the money that had previously been allocated for their fall and spring conferences. LP needs these trips in order to see talents, such as comedians and musicians, perform. They have the opportunity to see the act and then attempt to book the talent to bring it to Longwood.

The Student Finance Committee (SFC)bylaws in the SGA constitution states:
"L. POLICY AND PER DIEMS: 1. No RSO (registered student organization) shall receive more than thirty percent of the total operating budget." Over a quarter of a million dollars is more than thirty percent of the budget, yet LP was granted about that much for a budget last year. Plus, after losing their conference budgets they still end up with about 34 percent of the budget. "B. ORGANIZATION FUNDING REQUIREMENTS: 1. A representative of a registered student organization, hereafter RSO, must attend all meetings deemed mandatory by the Student Union and the SGA. It will be the responsibility of the person calling the meeting, to inform RSO's of all meeting dates a minimum of 2 weeks in advance of the meeting." This is the process that LP had to go through in order to get their budget allocated to them, just like every other club and organization.

However, a big chunk of LP's money (about $80,000 currently and $75,000 next year) is allocated to bring in quality entertainment for Spring Weekend. This year LP managed to book Shwayze, a rap act from Malibu, Calif., who had a show on MTV last summer, the popular country act Zac Brown Band, and southern rocker Corey Smith for the Longwood community. "There is a focus towards the traditions committee in the spring because of Spring Weekend," said Patterson. LP sponsored Saturday of Spring Weekend, which was seen as a success.

Another large amount of money is spent on the movies that LP shows every Friday night and Sunday afternoon in the student union ABC rooms. Almost $12,000 is spent for enough movies to show one movie every weekend, which becomes expensive because the organization must buy the rights to the movie to show it to students. However, given attendance at these movies, even if they charged admission and every seat was taken, LP would still not make a profit in the long run from showing all the movies.

"Next year we will work on recruiting more members which will generate more well-attended events," said Patterson. If Lancer Productions is getting more money from the SGA, then they should be able to increase their membership and the amount of students who attend their events in the future.