This last point proved especially important after a limitation on venues narrowed the range of options down to a single date.

Past spring concert plans have looked to utilize the large seating capacity of Bright Hockey Center. However, the ice has already been put down for the hockey teams this fall, forcing the HCC to find an alternative location. Consequently, they turned to the Athletic Department for permission to use Gordon Track, a move that proved to be much more complicated than originally foreseen.

Although originally assured that Gordon had plenty of space for the projected audience of 2,500, the HCC was dealt “a huge blow to our planning,” according to Bonstein.

The legal capacity of the building was only 1,500, a fact that was discovered in the last week of September. Before finally acquiring the license for the concert this week, the venue had to pass a new set of screenings by the Boston Fire Department.

The HCC has also had to hire Harvard personnel to supervise the show, as well as an outside consultant to design an in-depth emergency plan. Acting Associate Dean of the College Judith Kidd wrote in an e-mail that the expensive and complicated procedure for acquiring the license has been the “major hurdle” in the concert planning process.

Another complicating issue was the high number of approvals required for the event. In finalizing its plans, the Council had to coordinate with the Dean’s Office, the Athletic Department and the Office of the General Counsel, as well as several other campus institutions. To make matters even more difficult, last year’s bureaucratic reorganization meant individuals who had originally been working with the HCC, including Illingworth, were removed. A new group of administrators with no background on the issues was brought in halfway through the planning process.

Even with the personnel changes, however, Bonstein has nothing but praise for the administration’s support of the show.

“They’ve been amazing,” he says, “tremendously helpful.”

Council President Rohit Chopra ’04 says the complexity of organization necessary to hold major campus events has been the demise of past attempts to bring concerts to Harvard.

This time around, the Council began the planning process 6 months in advance. The Council authorized the HCC to plan a fall concert last spring, and got a head start over the summer.

“I realized if we were going to do it in the fall, we would need to get started in the summer, and the best thing to do was to get everyone together in one room,” Chopra says.

Bonstein said Chopra’s assertiveness proved invaluable.

“He has the leverage to command [administrative] audiences and ask them for their help,” he says. In Bonstein’s opinion, it was this early coordination that made this fall’s concert attempt successful where so many others had failed.

However, all the careful planning would have been in vain without a band, and Boston’s own Guster was a perfect fit. The combination of the $35,000 band fee and $8,000 in production expenses fell within the HCC budget while still allowing for affordable ticket prices.

Guster was also willing to play a much longer set than some of the other acts the HCC had looked at. As a bonus, Katheleen Edwards (Rolling Stone’s Artist of the Year for 2003), who had been touring with the band, has agreed to make Harvard her last date with the band. Working through Pretty Polly Productions, the HCC signed their final contracts with both acts on Oct. 22.