Singer Bryce Vine holds out his microphone stand over the audience as sophomore Ben Shonfeld sings into it. (Isabella Diaz-Mira | Junior Photo Editor)

The second annual Night at the Pageant (NAP) — starring rap duo EarthGang and pop singer Bryce Vine — had a lower student turnout than last year’s concert, despite a $25,000 increase in the talent budget, with a total budget of $100,000. The concert happened last Friday, Nov 8.

Senior Abby Sode, Vice President of Programming at Student Union (SU), said that the Social Programming Board (SPB) was happy with the attendance, though it was lower than projected. The SPB did not provide Student Life with an exact number or estimate of attendees.

“For this being the second time we have held NAP, we are pretty pleased with the turnout, especially on a busy Friday night,” Sode wrote in an email to Student Life.

Sophomore Isaac Trommer has attended NAP for the past two years. 

“I still had fun, but I know other people that said they felt it was almost uncomfortable how few people there were,” Trommer said. “I felt bad for the artist, because why would you want to pull up to a concert and [perform] to 200, maybe not even 200, people?”

Senior Reilly Dillon sings along to a Bryce Vine song. (Isabella Diaz-Mira | Junior Photo Editor)

Last year, NAP was piloted for the first time as a reimagined version of fall Walk in Lay Down (WILD), a concert that WashU used to hold once per semester, but that is now only offered in the spring. 

Senior Juan Sanchez, SPB Concert Chair, explained that the budget increase allowed them to bring co-headlining acts in an effort to increase student engagement, whereas last year there was just one main performer. 

“We believed that instead of doing one headliner and a smaller opener, two headliners could appeal to a wider audience from different genres,” he wrote.

He added that, unlike past WILDs and last year’s NAP, students were not surveyed about who they would want to see perform, instead opting to use a middle agent to find artists within budget. According to Sode, SPB is considering going back to using a survey to pick next year’s NAP headliner, but no decision has been made yet. 

Rap duo Earthgang performed as the first of two headlining acts at the second-ever NAP. (Isabella Diaz-Mira | Junior Photo Editor)

The SPB did not turn down any undergraduate students who waited in line for tickets. Sode said the ticketing process was smoother this year— tickets were distributed in-person at the Danforth University Center on a first-come, first-serve basis, rather than through an online lottery system like the year before. 

“The only students we turned down were graduate students, as they do not pay the undergraduate student activities fee,” Sode wrote. 

In their email prior to the concert, SPB had suggested that standby tickets at the door may be limited depending on the capacity of the venue. However, due to low attendance and leftover tickets, they were able to accommodate students who showed up to the Pageant the day of the concert. 

Trommer said that he liked this year’s headliners, even though he knew only a couple of the songs. He noted that this was the same experience he had last year, with indie-pop band Saint Motel. 

Senior Vivien Marmerstein attended a WashU-sponsored concert for the first time at NAP. She echoed Trommer’s sentiments about low attendance, but agreed that it was an enjoyable experience. 

“I find events like this typically pretty overwhelming, so it’s not something that I generally enjoy,” Marmerstein said. “So in some ways it really worked out, because there weren’t that many people there so it was a lot less overwhelming than I think NAP would have been otherwise.”

Both Trommer and Marmerstein said that they hope that the SPB publicizes NAP more in advance to increase attendance.

Trommer said that he didn’t know ticketing was happening until he walked into the DUC on Wednesday, Nov. 6 and saw the line. He said that while the process of getting a ticket was easier this year, last year, he felt that more people knew ticketing was happening.

Junior Ella Majd had a similar experience. Majd attended NAP last year, but decided to opt out this time around, in part because of a lack of publicity. 

“I love concerts, and I had a really good time [last year],” Majd said. “But my friends and I didn’t know ticketing was happening until the day before, so only one of my friends got a ticket.” 

Majd said she chose to see a friend perform in an a capella concert instead of trying to wait for a standby ticket, in part because she had not heard of either artist slated to perform at NAP.

“I know some people who went, and they said the artists were great but [that they] didn’t know them,” Majd said, adding that she would have rearranged her plans if the artist had been someone she was excited to see perform.

Marmerstein said that the timing of ticketing made it difficult for some people she knew to get tickets because they were in class during all of the times SPB was distributing them. 

“I didn’t mind that there weren’t that many people there, but obviously, our student funds are going into this event,” she said. “So it would be great if there was actually a full crowd of students there. So I feel like [SPB should publicize] it better and [give] more times for people to pick up tickets.”