One more day.

Only one more day before Jacks Bash is officially here.

South Dakota State University students and Brookings community members have been waiting 191 days for it.

As this newspaper is delivered across campus (around 4 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 7) some poor souls might just be setting up their camping gear outside the Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium to ensure they get the best seats for the Jacks Bash celebration.

They’re excited. Who isn’t excited? We, at The Collegian, may not be the most excited.

Yes, the concert is going to be awesome, tons of people are going to have fun and this event will no doubt have a positive economic impact on the Brookings community. But there are a few issues.

There has been a major lack of communication about everything—from parking to classes to informing people about the general details of the event.

People planning the event didn’t know the parking plan until 12 days before the event. Is this common in the event planning industry? If it isn’t, SDSU should plan better. If it is, then event planning should change.

Concert attendees want to know the parking situation and how that affects their evening. If they wait too long to come to campus they might end up walking two miles in heels. That’s not fun.

There was also conflicting comments about how classes should be addressed during Jacks Bash. Pressure was put on professors to cancel their classes or move their cars to make room in certain lots. Putting this sort of pressure on classes and professors isn’t conducive to the learning environment and values this university swears to uphold.

There’s also the question all students will face: to skip or not to skip?

Students already bought their tickets months in advance, but it wasn’t effectively communicated that they might have to skip class instead of classes being canceled. Those students are conflicted. And what about the students who aren’t going? Should they really attend a class where only one-fourth of the course roster will be present?

This skipping scenario only includes Thursday, but there’s the day after to consider as well. Going to an 8 a.m. class hungover isn’t something most people choose to endure. Some people might not even wake up to their alarm.

We, at The Collegian, think the event would be better suited for an academic place such as SDSU if it were on a Friday, or even a Saturday. It could have been the Friday of Labor Day weekend, or on a bye weekend.

The university also just spent a heck-ton of money on this stadium, and now we’re letting a bunch of people trample over the beautiful soybean-based turf, trash the seats and risk “drunk effects” all over the pristine bathrooms and toilets.

Granted, the turf is covered to protect it from spillage, but Midwesterners like to think of our football fields as sacred turf and the idea of people jumping all over it just a few days before the first home game hurts our hearts a little.

Clean up is going to suck. A ton of trash will result from this event. And it’s going to be done all within a day after the concert. Wonder which poor suckers have to do that job.

The last (we promise) problem we have with the Jacks Bash event is that it doesn’t cater to everyone. Just because it’s South Dakota doesn’t mean everyone likes country music. We, at The Collegian, understand why concert planners went with country because the majority of SDSU students like it, but it alienates others who want to be part of the celebration but don’t like country.

Maybe other types of genres could perform to make it more of a music festival and cater to different types of styles and tastes. We, at The Collegian, don’t know how successful it would be, but it might be worth a try.

Don’t be fooled by all this negativity. We’re excited—we think this is a good thing and will help make SDSU even more awesome. But officials should have thought out this event more thoroughly and communicated with the general public (or at least The Collegian) more than they did.

If Jacks Bash becomes an annual event (Welcome Back Jacks Bash, anyone?), we, at The Collegian, feel those in charge of the event should take these thoughts into consideration. There’s definitely room for improvement.

Stance: 

The event should have been better communicated and planned.