After undergoing major restructuring over the past few months, Carolina Productions is on its way to bringing a boatload of new events, speakers and performers to USC this spring. From Nick Offerman, a “Parks and Recreation” actor, to Seth Meyers, the head writer for “Saturday Night Live,” the CP staff aren’t the only ones excited about the upcoming semester.
Things haven’t always gone smoothly for CP. Recall the time they brought former S.C. first lady Jenny Sanford in to talk, an event that was not only pricey, averaging about $100 per person, but stirred up controversy all over campus. Even over the fall semester, CP had a couple of events that flopped. For example, a talk by African-American lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activist Keith Boykin in October only drew in 54 students. Though CP also hosted many successful events, such as weekly movie showings and hypnotists, which averaged low costs per head, there is still room to improve.
But this semester, we have reason to be optimistic. With the recent leadership turnover at CP, this spring’s lineup indicates that they are, perhaps, finally paying close attention to what students actually want. While there are many comedy acts for this semester, appealing to the masses, CP is still trying to maintain balance by bringing in variety as well, such as hosting an African dance performance. And for these more obscure events, CP should consider advertising them more to students in advance to avoid a recurrence of last semester’s low attendance.
But for now, we have high hopes for this spring. Hopefully these improvements will continue into the future to bring our students quality entertainment at low costs.