My letter is in regards to your March 26 article on University Union announcing the lineup for MayFest.

The lineup to this year’s MayFest is truly disheartening. UU has again decided to give money to a bunch of D-list acts that they found through iTunes. For perspective, 5 and A Dime is a group that opened for Super Smash Bros, a disc jockey duo that saw Girl Talk’s popularity and thought, ‘That can’t be too hard,’ and hasn’t been relevant since people decided dubstep was cooler than mash-ups.

I think the real reason I am upset with the lineup is that UU and the Student Association made a promise to us when they moved MayFest from Euclid Avenue to Walnut Park. We were told that the ‘new’ MayFest would have just as much tradition and school pride as the old Euclid MayFest. However, by bringing in random acts with little to no fame to play for us, when there are so many acts available right in Syracuse who would love to play the event, Mayfest feels like an event that is less about the students and more about the university’s image to the outside public.

There are so many popular Syracuse artists that would have the exact same draw as the four bands announced Sunday. Bands like the Vanderbuilts, who recently opened up for Cults and Titus Andronicus; Half Sister, who opened for Real Estate; and Beauty School all have strong fan bases on the campus. Not to mention rappers such as IMG, Indo and Jay Foss, who are all very popular among SU and State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry students, if that is more the style UU wanted. In addition, there are tons of DJs and ‘electro’ DJ groups on campus that I’m sure would put on a show on par with, or better than, Timeflies.

I guess my long-winded point to UU is if you’re going to bring in acts with no big name appeal, you might as well have the acts be students from the school that is hosting the event. If I’m going to hear DJs yell ‘Georgetown sucks’ in the middle of their set, I at least want to believe that they mean it.

Eric Scheib, Class of 2012