Iowa State is the biggest college in Iowa, and among the biggest in the Midwest, so why can’t we attract bigger named musicians to our campus? We were slated to have some B list musicians here last April before the Veishea mess happened and since then about half of those musicians have actually came and preformed here on campus but like I said, B list. Where are those A list musicians at?

The first problem is Des Moines being right down the road. Most artists will not want go play in Des Moines and then come 30 minutes down the road to Ames, just to reset their equipment and play the same show they did the previous night for a group of people who can easily travel to Des Moines. And when they have to choose between Des Moines and Ames, everyone will pick Des Moines.

The University of Minnesota is located in Minneapolis and the University of Wisconsin, though it has many campuses, is located in Madison. So when musicians come to play in those cities, they will often choose the university as a venue.

The second problem is Iowa. I love this state, born and raised in Iowa, but we all have to know it is a rather boring state. It’s almost classified as a miracle if a musician comes to Des Moines to play, let alone Ames. When I am looking at some of my favorite bands and their tour schedule, I always see Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri and Wisconsin. Almost as if they are intentionally hopping over Iowa, oh wait … they are. The city of Chicago has almost the entire population of Iowa, so why come here when five hours away they can get our whole state in one city? Economically it makes sense to stay away from Iowa. Even our biggest city, Des Moines, is only half the size of Minneapolis.

Unfortunately we cannot do anything about the small state population or the fact that we are only 30 minutes away from our state’s biggest city. So we will have to settle for the fact that when an artist chooses to come to Iowa there is a good chance we will have to travel to see them.