Students shine their flashlights at the stage during NAP. (Zoe Oppenheimer | Student Life)

For the first time in Washington University’s history, the Student Programming Board’s (SPB) fall concert was held at the Pageant on the Delmar Loop instead of on campus, Nov. 9. A majority of students surveyed considered the concert, rebranded from Fall WILD to Night at the Pageant (NAP), to be an overall success.

A Student Life survey sent out to the student body found that  81% of 54 respondents said that they either “enjoyed” or “really enjoyed” the event, and more than 90% of students reported feeling safe walking to and from the event. 

In the survey, students complained of audio malfunctions and questioned the nature of WILD as a staple of campus life moving forward.

The main concern raised by students was that NAP did not feel the same as a typical Fall WILD. “The concert was fun, but SPB and Campus Life need to stop pretending this is a replacement for WILD,” junior Eli Perlin said. 

Senior Sam Block said he hopes SPB will “comprehensively evaluate” if Fall WILD can be held on campus in the future and to “publish those findings so that the student body can understand and not blindly hate SPB.”

Vice President of Programming, Abby Sode, a junior who also serves as the head of SPB, urges students to see Fall WILD in a post-pandemic light since “none of us who are current undergraduate students have ever experienced a Fall WILD.” 

Sode emphasized that students should temper their expectations given the difficulties in making WILD free and equitable. She compared the event to concerts held at similarly-sized colleges that charge students to attend.

“You’re already paying for WILD with your Student Activities fee,” Sode said. “So that would be essentially us double-charging you in order to even get a bigger artist.”

That raises bigger equity-related questions for Sode and SPB. 

“That now brings about questions of ‘what about people who can’t afford to pay $35?’ That’s not fair. So hence, why WILD is free,” she said.

For next semester, Sode encourages students to fill out the artist request form so that SPB can pick an artist that accurately represents student desires. 

Junior Antoinette Manteau thought that the choice of artist, Saint. Motel, was the “best artist by far yet” but acknowledged that this semester’s event felt different from past concerts. 

“This felt more like an amazing free concert provided by WashU but did not have the WILD vibe at all. Really not even comparable in terms of hype and energy but again, amazing choice of artist,” she said. 

Manteau’s sentiments were shared by senior Renee Fuller who has not been able to go to past WILDs due to religious conflicts but found this year’s ticketing process frustrating.

“I really enjoyed it,” Fuller said. “It was a bit annoying that it was off campus and we had to specifically register and pick up tickets. Overall I had a good time. I loved the atmosphere, and the band was really fun! I also was happy that it wasn’t on a Friday night because I haven’t been able to go to WILD in the past because of religious observance of the Sabbath, so it was fun to be able to go finally.”

SPB Concerts Director Ruby Cover, a sophomore, expressed a similar sentiment regarding ticket distribution and hopes to improve the process for future events. 

“It is just very tedious and time-intensive, where we were manually going through the responses looking at copies of people and just making sure that everyone was entered into the lottery only once.”

Cover said she views the event as a success and was happy to see students enjoying the event. 

“It was fun to see other students get into it because they were around other WashU students getting to see live music.”

One issue multiple students had with the event was the delay between the opener and Saint Motel coming on for the event. According to Cover, she was told that the delay would initially last five minutes, but it was extended to around 45 minutes. She sees it as “one of those odd outlier events” that ideally does not happen again. 

For SPB, the event was the first of its kind that the group hopes to build upon for the future. 

“I think that event was a success, especially since it’s our first time doing something like that,” Sode said. “It’s a trial run, and obviously there are things that we can improve on for next time, but I think for it being a new thing it went pretty well.”