While you're getting hyped up for Steve Aoki and Big Boi, think back a year ago to last year's Dillo Day headliners. Ever wonder how the decision to invite B.o.B and The New Pornographers came to be? Similar to past years, the decision-making process involves a lot of back-and-forth between Mayfest and agencies, ultimately whittling down a blindingly long list of artists down to five acts.
"We literally go through our iTunes," said Bienen senior Zach Robinson, concerts chair for Mayfest. Last year, Robinson led a group of seven people in Mayfest's concerts committee. Working with the Mayfest executive board, there were a total of 18 to 20 people in on the decision-making.
Last year, this grueling process began in January. Members of the committee contact different agencies to inquire about artist availability and cost. If fitting, Mayfest will then send an official offer (with money involved) to the agency, who may then ask for more money and have multiple exchanges with Mayfest regarding the offer.
More than 60 artists were inquired about for Dillo Day 2011. Weinberg senior Max Brawer, a Mayfest talent buyer on the concerts committee, emphasized that most artists across the board are considered. "A thing I wish people realized is that when they think of someone they wish had played, the odds that we haven't inquired about them is roughly zero percent," he said. "It doesn't slip our mind. We ask about everyone you might think of it's just that there's usually a reason no."
In terms of booking being a gamble, Robinson said that there's never really a time crunch. "We only get stressed when we feel like we're not doing a good job," he said. "It's never a time thing." While the committee never sends out more offers than they have slots for, they do put expiration dates on offers so that if an artist doesn't respond in time, Mayfest has the right to pull out of the offer.
Specifically for 2011, the committee had already began thinking about an electronic headliner vs. a hip-hop act. "Last year was when the bubble started building," Robinson said. "We had Super Mash Bros the year before and that went really well, so we wanted to take it to the next level and the next level was getting an electronic headliner."
On the lighter side of things, The Dan Band, who might better be known has the wedding band from Old School, were a consideration. "We just thought it would be funny," Robinson said. Mayfest sent an offer out to the band, but the band declined. However much The Dan Band were perhaps a joke, Robinson said that the midday slot the band would have taken lends itself to being creative. "It's funny because that slot in a sense is the weakest slot," he said. "But it's the one that we can have the most experimentation with." In the end, Peter Bjorn and John took the midday slot.
And lest we forget about those Northwestern-viral screencaps of The Strokes and Journey coming to Evanston for Dillo Day 2011, the infamous "April Fools'" joke bands made Mayfest laugh too. "People who have very basic coding knowledge like to view the sourcecode and they know how to just do that and then change the names of bands and screencap it," said Brawer. "We send it to each other because it's funny."
Special thanks to Mayfest concerts chair Zach Robinson, Mayfest concerts committee talent buyers Max Brawer, Roxana Obregon and Jeremy Shpizner, and Mayfest concerts shadows Jacob Skaggs, Sarah Loughman, Ton Luk and Tori Zuzelo for data compilation.
Full disclosure: Max Brawer has been an editor and marketing director for NBN and is a current contributor.