Osprey Productions has brought several great musical and entertainment acts to UNF during the last several years.

To help diversify and reach a broader variety of students, OP is trying to vary the type of entertainment it brings to campus. To accomplish this, OP goes through several steps to find acts that will attract students’ interest.

Although OP is able to bring several great acts to UNF, its efforts will fall unnoticed due to lack of variety in the audience they are able to target.

A majority of the bands that have performed at UNF during the past five years, including 311, Sugarcult and the Shopboys, which all are bands that are played on generic top-40 radio stations.

It seems that rather than bringing in a variety of genres, OP is trying to find generic acts that reach the most people.

“We try really hard to bring in a wide variety of acts, but because of our low budget, we can’t afford to bring in the big name acts from a variety of genres that you would see at other schools,” OP Director Lauren McAllister said. “It’s really all about finding the act that will attract the most number of people that fits into our budget.”

Each year OP actively surveys the student body and community of UNF to get a sense of what kind of acts would be most well-received. Once it has compiled a list of the most requested acts, OP members analyze the acts to see what they can afford.

This year OP chose to bring in country acts Jo Dee Messina and Billy Currington for the fall feature concert.

Jacksonville’s official Arbitron radio ratings show country music station WQIK was the most listened to FM radio station in Jacksonville this year, but this fall’s concert was the first country concert UNF has hosted in five years.

Though country concerts are common in Jacksonville, they are not common at UNF, according to a Florida Times-Union report.

Besides the one big show OP hosts each semester, they also have a smaller budgeted show to try to mix up the acts and appeal to a variety of audiences.

The smaller budget concerts focus on bringing in smaller acts from the community and the area. There is even the possibility of OP bringing a battle of the bands to UNF in the near future.

However, due to the small budget it’s highly unlikely students will even hear about the smaller acts, let alone see them.

“I had no clue there was concert at the Arena tonight,” sophomore Nick Winslow said after hearing about the Jo Dee Messina concert.  “If I didn’t know about a big act like her, how am I supposed to find out about smaller acts I might like?”

E-mail John Weidner at [email protected].