Thanks to a program started last year, students are now entirely in charge of promotion for shows put on by UApresents.
Student Promoters is the newly formed group in charge of spreading the news about shows among the student body.
Three student leaders are responsible for overseeing the entire team, which is composed of about 39 to 45 students.
The idea for Student Promoters was introduced two years ago, and was created by Jo Alenson, the director of marketing for UApresents, and Jody Liller, a retired staff member of Campus Recreation who now volunteers for UApresents.
“The idea of having student advocates on campus working with UApresents was something I had wanted to do for a long time,” Alenson said.
Students working for the team represent different clubs, organizations and dorms and promote extensively to those groups.
Alenson said leadership in Student Promoters is “a great opportunity for students to take charge, make things happen and gain new skills and experience.”
She added that UApresents still provides some oversight and assistance, but students make all the promotional decisions.
Some students in the group are musicians who play at events for donors, while others assist at Centennial Hall, where UApresents holds many of its shows. Students also do behind-the-scenes work, such as doing research on potential artists, carrying out membership mailings, creating flyers and doing administrative work in the UApresents office.
“I have had so much fun doing it, I have met so many cool people and I made a lot of really good friends doing it,” said Kailey Hart, one of the three leaders of Student Promoters and a senior studying English and elementary education. “It’s just a really fun program to be part of.”
Hart said that one of the aspects of working with Student Promoters she enjoys the most is meeting performers such as entertainers Penn & Teller, and Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage from the Discovery Channel’s “Mythbusters.”
“I really like helping some of the students that volunteer for the program discover theater for themselves, and bringing theater and the educational experiences that it brings to other people around campus,” said Austin Holt, another of the three leaders of the team and a senior studying management information systems and operations management.
Holt added that one of his favorite aspects about the work is getting to see the behind-the-scenes side of a theater production.
“Usually you just walk in, you sit down, you watch a show and you don’t really think about all of the hundreds of hours that have gone into planning that and getting it prepped, all for the one beautiful hour of the show coming together,” Holt said.
