Big-name entertainment such as 3 Doors Down, Sara Evans and KiD CuDi could soon be coming to Iowa State, provided a bill for the project receives approval from the Government of the Student Body.

The Featured Programs for Students bill would allocate $200,000 in funding to the Student Union Board to bring nationally-recognized acts to campus. Tickets for the shows would be sold at discount prices to students, averaging around $25 per ticket.

Funding for the program would come from the $346,000 that was set aside for the Cyclone Cinema proposal. This proposal was dropped at the GSB meeting Wednesday, due to the inability of the project to be continued because of high building renovation costs and Campustown renovation plans.

“The intention of this money is to be seed money, so don’t think that you’re just getting this for a one-time use,” said Anthony Maly, finance director and senior in political science. “The plan is for this program to be sustainable.”

MaryBeth Konkowski, SUB president and junior in communication studies, said the $200,000 would be used as a startup cost for the program in order to guarantee that the artist will come. From there, any money generated from ticket sales that exceed the cost of bringing in the entertainment would be saved and used to bring in another big-name artist. The amount of money the project has will determine the size of the artist that comes in.

The community would also be able to purchase tickets to attend the concerts. Konkowski said non-student tickets would cost roughly $10 more, helping to outweigh the discounted ticket prices for students.

“This isn’t something that we’re contracting or anything like that, so next time we don’t have this huge act, but we bring in a smaller one with the money we have,” Konkowski said.

Similar programs like this are already in place at many of the Big 12 schools, as well as the University of Iowa. Konkowski said implementing this entertainment program at Iowa State would prevent students from having to travel long distances and pay higher ticket prices to see their favorite artists.

Konkowski said they are planning on having two events in the fall and only one in the spring because of VEISHEA.

“It really just depends on the money available and who’s coming,” Konkowski said.

GSB senators discussed the proposed entertainment bill for more than one hour at Wednesday’s meeting, before deciding to postpone voting on it until the meeting next week.

Several senate members raised concerns about the feasibility of the project.

Halley Stille, speaker of the senate and senior in French, said she thinks the project is a good idea, but has some concerns about the success of it.

“I feel like with this bill we’re handing over $200,000 and there’s no measure to make sure it’s successful,” Stille said.

She suggested using metrics to track the success of the program and make sure the goals are being met.

Evan Vencil, graduate in civil, construction and environmental engineering, and graduate  senator, said he felt “blindsided” by the bill. He feels that Iowa State is an educational institution and that GSB should not be putting that much money toward entertainment for students.

Vencil also voiced concerns about the success rate of the project.

“Cyclone Cinema was a very tangible asset — you could touch it, you could know almost what you wanted it down for — this project, right now, is intangible both on SUB’s side and GSB’s side,” Vencil said. “It seems like right now we are just wanting to hand over the money to SUB and we don’t really have any of our metrics on how we want to measure it or what we can expect the students to see coming from this money.”

Other senators were in support of the bill and felt a postponement of voting was unnecessary.

Arjay Vander Velden, IRHA senator and sophomore in computer engineering, said he had spoken with his constituents regarding the bill and only heard complaints from one of them.

“I’m very heavily in support of this bill,” Vander Velden said. “Yeah, it seems like a lot of money, but if you get the proper results out of it, I believe this could be very good for our university.”

Spencer Hughes, open-option freshman, also voiced support for the bill.

He said he knows many students who have traveled to other cities to attend a concert. He said this program would not only save students money and travel time, but it would also keep Iowa State in line with our peer institutions.

“If you look at the peer institutions of Iowa State, it’s hard to find one that doesn’t have a program like this,” Hughes said. “It’s just something that I feel like we’re behind the game with and we need to get with the picture.”

The bill will be up for further discussion and a possible vote at the GSB meeting Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Campanile Room of the Memorial Union.

An open forum where students can voice their opinions about the bill will take place at 6 p.m., Tuesday, in the Maintenance Shop of the Memorial Union.