Every Spring Festival, the event organizers work around the clock to ensure that the students have a good time, part of which involves bringing musicians to KAIST to perform. However, the significant sums of money needed to hire these musicians, not to mention the brevity of their performances, makes some of us question the wisdom of this tradition.

Pro: Celebrities Provide Much More Than Just Music
By Angela Choi

Every spring, KAIST students become excited. The cause of their excitement is not the fair weather or the blooming cherry blossom season; it’s the annual Spring Festival. Held over three days, the Spring Festival features many different events and food stands hosted by different student clubs. The biggest eye catchers, however, are the celebrities that KAIST “rents” for the festival nights. Some might say that the money invested into these celebrities is wasteful spending and that it could be invested into more appropriate or efficient funding. But to the contrary, bringing music groups is beneficial to KAIST and its students in many ways.

First off, the students, having completed their midterms just a few weeks ago and faced with the finals in a short month’s time, could really benefit from the entertainment. Held like mini-concerts, the visits from different bands and groups are a refreshing break, providing entertainment that just isn’t the same as a few hours spent drinking with friends or singing at the karaoke.

Also, call it corny but it brings a sense of unity as students physically gather together to watch the performances. Music, commonly referred to as the universal language by some, has the power to unite even strangers. Last year, I remember watching one of the performances without knowing who the performing singer was, but the atmosphere was surprisingly nice with all the students in attendance jumping together to the beat of the music or waving their hands about in unison to slow ballads.

In addition, KAIST caters to many different musical tastes by bringing several musical guests over the 3-day period, having brought pop groups like the Wonder Girls as well as no-name indie rock bands. While not all of the guests are idol groups, by settling with more obscure artists, KAIST can provide great musical variety.

Another perk to bringing celebrities to KAIST is the school pride that it also carries. Amongst schools, there’s a competition for which can bring the best celebrities. Although KAIST can’t compare with schools in Seoul that host idol celebrities like 2PM and IU, when compared with other schools in Daejeon, bringing performers like Dynamic Duo all the way here is quite a feat. During the Spring Festival, students from neighboring colleges like Chungnam University often visit to see some of these performers.

Arguably not all performances are teeming with students eagerly jumping to the beat, but you can’t satisfy everyone. For the few who do listen to the music, it’s mentally freeing, losing yourself in the music and momentarily forgetting about quizzes, homework and their likes. With delicious food and games all available in the vicinity, the musical performances complement it all nicely.

If you’re thinking “If all you need is loud music, why don’t you just play the musicians’ songs on speakers and save a lot of money?” Well, simply put, speakers don’t form the kind of bond that entertainers can make with their audience. The music may be of studio quality when using speakers, but when hearing it live with the musicians singing and dancing right in front of you, there’s a certain satisfaction that can’t be matched with a playlist of downloaded mp3 files or CDs.

Bringing celebrity singers to KAIST is a key part of our annual Spring Festival because it does more than simply provide students with music. Sure, Girl’s Day is no replacement for IU but they’ll suffice when it comes to simply relieving the students’ pressure with the entertainment of live music as they listen either from the front row or from their seats at the food stands.

Con: We Are Putting Money On Stars That Don’t Shine
By Paulo Kemper

I still remember my first Spring Festival back in 2008: a pop-star who was allegedly filming a reality show on campus and the Wonder Girls, performers of the back-then hit song “Tell Me,” were coming to do a live performance at KAIST. “Wow, so this is how it feels to be studying at one of the best universities in the country,” I thought. I was expecting all the different crowds from Daejeon and nearby cities to cram up our campus, especially because it was free of charge. I went to the stage area far ahead of time to secure my place before the hordes of fans arrived. I watched the concerts up in the front, but no, “the crowd” was not large enough to even fill the grass field in front of the Main Administration Building. Nor was the performance the best of the kind. Besides “Tell Me,” another three or four songs were performed by the Wonder Girls, and afterwards they went away. Not quite what I expected. “Maybe it was an odd concert,” I thought. Unfortunately, that pattern repeated for the following years. Davichi (2009) and even Younha (2010) failed to bring crowds of KAISTians, and by the time of G.Na concert in 2011, I no longer felt motivated to go at all. They do not come for free, so I guess we are not rightly allocating that money.

I am not aware of the exact figures, but I imagine that inviting these celebrities is not cheap. Yes, they are famous and in most cases they are good. I have paid $100 in the past to watch the Red Hot Chili Peppers play live, and I did so twice. There were thousands of people with me on both instances, and the Chili Peppers were on stage for about two hours for each performance. They probably charged a lot for their concerts, yet they were packed with people who also paid a considerable amount of money to see them. However, here at KAIST we probably invest a considerable amount of resources to bring in stars and nobody has to pay to watch them, and yet we fail to draw the crowds. Perhaps they should advertise better with at least a week’s advance in notice. Or perhaps the administration should ask the students who they want to listen to within affordable choices. In the past four years I never saw any surveys on who we wanted it to be on the stage for the festival, or which would be the best way to use the allocated budget. That way, bringing celebrities could become a better investment.

On the other hand, there also are some not-so-famous bands that come to our festivals, and most of them are really good. They are probably more cost-effective and, in most cases, those “small” bands actually play the whole song live rather than just lip-synching, dancing and looking pretty. At the same Spring Festival in which I became disappointed with the Wonder Girls, for example, I discovered a band called Bella Mafia, and I really enjoyed their performance and ended up buying their CD later on. I don’t know whether KAIST buys an entertainment package that has the stars with the random minor bands that tag along, but the minor bands are bound to be more cost effective and just as capable of providing fun as the main attractions. On top of that, we would also get to know about good, quality bands that are not yet mainstream.

The bottom line is: the way we have been doing for the past four years, I do not think we should spend much of the school resources in bringing celebrities. The overall happiness gain does not justify the investment. Nonetheless, I am not against KAIST using the same amount of resources for student welfare, especially for the Spring Festival. It is a good investment, I just think that there are smarter ways of doing it: forget the stars, bring in many less-famous bands and give us free beer!