For some students, the leadup to the Green Key concert poses many questions — from what to wear to which artists will perform. But a question that can often be overlooked is the planning and budgeting required for such an event. With a 2023-2024 budget of $394,000, what role does Programming Board play in organizing the College’s largest concert event?
PB will have a $406,000 budget in the 2024-2025 fiscal cycle — more than any other student organization — that will come out of a $1,474,000 student activities budget, according to an Undergraduate Finance Committee press statement released this month. PB’s 2025 budget marks a $12,000 increase from 2024 — a rise that the UFC allocation press release attributes to “inflationary prices of artists.”
According to student involvement director David Pack, approximately $205,000 of this year’s $394,000 budget was allocated to the Green Key main stage concert.
The Green Key budget was roughly split between talent, tech production, securities and all associated costs, PB executive Hannah Shariff ’25 added. According to past reporting by The Dartmouth, PB works with the Department of Safety and Security, the Hanover Police Department, Green Mountain Security — a hired independent security team — and Dartmouth Emergency Medical Services to secure the event.
The remaining $189,000 went toward other events such as Fallapalooza, Barn Babies, Glaze It, Sweater Weather and performances from comedians like SNL’s Marcello Hernández and Molly Kearney.
Shariff said the student body’s interests are central to PB’s mission.
“We want to serve the needs of every single member of the student body because we get our money from the UFC,” Shariff said. “We want to hold events that students across campus can participate in.”
With this mission statement in mind, The Dartmouth sent out a survey to Dartmouth students from May 7 to May 13, yielding 192 responses. The goal of the survey was to assess student satisfaction with PB events and its distribution of funding.
The majority of those surveyed, 65%, felt that the Programming Board should allocate more money to Green Key — which PB tentatively plans to do next year, according to Pack.
He elaborated that PB plans to spend 75% of the $406,000 budget on concerts, with a “little over 50% of the total budget going to Green Key.” For lower-attendance events, PB might shift their focus to “coffeehouse concert artists” who can play on campus for a lower cost, Pack said.
Ian Glick ’26 shared that although he attended Glaze It, Fallapalooza and performed at Battle of the Bands, he would support more money being allocated to Green Key.
“I haven’t looked to PB on a regular basis to be my entertainment or fun thing to do on most weekends,” he said. “So to me, if some of the money that is spent on those events that I haven’t gone to and for the most part won’t go to was allocated more toward Green Key, which I definitely will go to every year, I would like that.”
Ari Morris ’24, who has attended Glaze It and Big Prize Bingo, said she agreed with the current distribution.
“I feel like it’s a fair split,” she said. “The smaller events are fun to have as options, especially having [comedians]. Different people are excited about different things.”
In terms of the Green Key concert itself, equal numbers of students expressed high levels of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, at 19%, with Shaggy as this year’s Green Key artist, although students were surveyed prior to his performance. Additionally, 29% were somewhat satisfied, 12% were indifferent and 22% were somewhat dissatisfied. In summary, 48% reported a degree of satisfaction and 41% of those surveyed indicated a degree of dissatisfaction.
After Shaggy’s Green Key performance, Glick said he was satisfied with Shaggy as the headliner.
“The show was really fun,” he said. “Even not knowing any Shaggy songs, I still had a good time.”
Glick said he watched the concert from the Fahey and McLane Halls lawn rather than from the crowd in front of the stage but observed that “a lot of people” were dancing and the “audience vibes were high.”
Morris — who said she has attended Green Key all three years it has been offered for her — shared similar sentiments.
“I hadn’t heard anything [by Shaggy] except for ‘It Wasn’t Me,’” she said. “But [the concert] was very fun. I had a good time.”
However, according to Shariff, other than the Green Key genre interest survey that PB sends out before winter term begins, PB does not currently have a method of quantitatively assessing student satisfaction with events or taking attendance at events. However, certain events like Glaze It can be quantitatively evaluated through the number of pots painted, Pack explained.
“We conduct [informal] exit-entry surveys,” she said. “We say, ‘Hey, how was this event? Did you enjoy it?’ People come up to us and say thank you, or they’ll offer suggestions.”
PB has open meetings at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesdays, and all students are welcome to attend, according to Shariff. Pack said he believes there is a “misconception” among students that PB is made up of administrators rather than classmates.
“[Non-PB students] think that PB is some group of administrators that’s planning events,” Pack said. “No — it’s your fellow students. Any of you can join at any point. … PB is constantly looking for input from folks who aren’t able to do the full commitment [of being on the board].”
Methodology Notes:
From May 7 to May 13, The Dartmouth executed an online survey of Dartmouth students asking their opinions about the Programming Board’s budget and Green Key. Through their college email addresses, the survey was sent to 4,447 undergraduate student recipients, of which 192 responded, yielding a response rate of 4.3%. Using administrative data from the College’s Office of Institutional Research, responses were weighted by gender and race/ethnicity. Weighting was done through iterative post-stratification (raking). Survey results have a margin of error +/-7 percentage points.
