For music fans who were disappointed two years ago when the scarcely known Black Eyed Peas were the featured band at Veishea or last year when long-forgotten Soul Asylum played the Lied Recreation Center, this year’s Veishea band decision may be even more disappointing.

That’s because there will be no featured band this year, a decision Jessica Carlson, Veishea entertainment co-chairwoman, said was made to change things up and add more variety to Veishea entertainment options.

“We felt like we had a sufficient amount of entertainment for students. I mean, we’re bringing in two big-name comedians and doing a number of new events with the student comedy show and [student talent show] Cyclone Idol,” said Carlson, who is also a Daily correspondent. “So we’ve taken on a lot more things this year.”

Carlson, junior in journalism and mass communication, thinks this year’s addition of a sky-diving simulator, one of only three in the country, will be popular with the students. She is confident the wider variety of entertainment options will make up for the lack of a big concert.

One act that was willing to play Ames was singer/songwriter Ben Kweller. Grant Nelson, Veishea entertainment coordinator, said the Kweller camp was excited about the prospect of playing Ames and was offering its services cheap — Kweller was willing to play Veishea for somewhere between $7,000 and $9,000.

“[Kweller] was actually supposed to be in North Carolina [during Veishea time], but when I called his management, his booking people were like, ‘Yeah, we’ve been trying to get him in Ames for two years,’ ” said Nelson, senior in marketing.

Nelson worked on finding a band for five months because he was under the impression that, like previous years, there was a budget set aside for a band. But when it came to decision time, he was told by the Veishea executive board it wouldn’t be economically feasible.

“Of course, I kind of agree with them because everything is getting cut,” Nelson admits. “But if you have a budget for it, why not spend the money?”

Carlson said there was never a specified budget for bringing in a band; instead, the committee opted to use the lump sum appointed to them as a broad entertainment fund.

“We chose to try and bring in more entertainment as opposed to just one big concert,” Carlson said.

Cory Bailey, Veishea general co-chairman, said deciding to pass on Kweller wasn’t entirely budget-related.

Bailey, senior in agriculture business and accounting, said he didn’t want to see Veishea get itself in the same hole it has in the last two years with a hasty decision on a band that may not appeal to many students.

“We didn’t want to rush into this and then it just kind of fell together and it wasn’t something we were proud of,” he said.

Another factor to take into account, Bailey said, was the fact the entertainment committee didn’t meet its deadline for finding a band, which was set for last fall.

Nelson admits to knowing about the deadline, but said the fact that the Veishea committee was hesitant on giving a set budget at that time made it difficult for him to hunt for bands.

“Whenever we asked about [the budget], it kind of got pushed on and pushed on,” Nelson said.

“Finally, it got to the end of January and we had our list of people we wanted, but it just kept getting delayed,” Nelson said.

The annual battle of the bands will still take place on Friday night on the Taste of Veishea stage. Bailey and Nelson said more regional talent will also be featured in order to liven up Welch Ave.