Bryan Jurus is taking the helm of Student Special Events and ushering in some changes while modifying some old favorites. See what the man behind some of UNM’s trendiest and happening events has to say about the upcoming year and his future plans for Student Special Events.
Daily Lobo: First off, congratulations on your new position as the director of Student Special Events. It must be exciting. But what’s different? What do you have planned for the year?
Bryan Jurus: SSE is going to have a bit of a new face. The things to expect are maybe not as many little events, but bigger events. We’re sitting on something like two big events, probably starting in September, and just going with it from there. That’s kind of how we were revamping it. We want to do the bigger stuff. We understand that clubs and organizations do the smaller stuff, and we want what we do to be exceptional and a step above.
DL: So what does that mean for the old stuff?
BJ: Oh yeah, we are still going to have the major events. We will have the drag show. We’ll have Fiestas. Actually, the Fiestas booking is starting now. But, really, I don’t know why we couldn’t throw a monthly music concert that is really big.
DL: That does sound pretty exciting. I want to take a step back for a moment. Can you explain, for those who might be unfamiliar, what the SSE really does?
BJ: SSE is basically an eye-opener. Student Special Events is here to bring everything outside of New Mexico into New Mexico, to broaden the student horizon. It’s all about stuff you wouldn’t see here. We try to make it an open door. Not a lot of kids can afford to go to Lollapalooza or South by Southwest, so what we do is try to bridge the gap between the two. So maybe we can’t afford headliners, but why can’t we pull two or three of the smaller acts on their tickets? Hopefully, we can bring that diversity to the school. So that’s kind of the approach to it. But you mentioned it: Student involvement is crucial to SSE. … Getting kids in here to participate makes what we can do more possible. It can really make a good event exceptional. The volunteers are what make it, and that’s our family.
DL: So do you have any other big changes planned for the upcoming year?
BJ: The whole marketing department: You should expect things like an iPhone app and a Droid app from SSE. You’re going to be able to see everything mobile. We’re trying to finally integrate the technology into how we reach the kids. Everyone knows how to use the Internet, and the idea of postering and flier-ing is almost dead, but, yeah, it still needs to be done.
DL: So that does include Facebook, too? Another group perhaps for events and the like?
BJ: We kind of want to go beyond that. It’s already been done. I get on my Facebook, and there are 13 events every time. It’s almost a lost avenue of reaching people. It’s become bombarded, so a lot of people are turned off by it. We kind of want to go beyond that. We want to make a Google calendar that can sync with anyone else’s Google calendar, so it’s right there. We want to go to them instead of having them come to us. Another big change you’re going to see is student involvement.
DL: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. How was student involvement been in the past, and what do you hope for in the future?
BJ: It’s — how I should put this — in years past it’s been increasing every year. There’s always been a lot, but in many ways I don’t want a group of five people to determine the lineup for Fiestas. I want the school to kind of pick what it wants to see on that lineup. And we are going to do our best to follow through on that. It’s one of those things. We want the students to make that decision, and then we want to facilitate that decision. And we are students as well, so we will throw input in, as well. Though, at the end of the day, if the students want someone big, then we are going to do our best to pull it off. That’s our approach to it.
