I attended SET’s first open mic night that was held in the campus center’s coffee house. I can over all say I was not impressed with the way the event was run. The talent was entertaining to watch. There were singers, a group of musicians, and a “Dad Joke” comedian. It was hard to enjoy the acts when the coffee house was filled with noise. This is understandable to a degree. Students, who  were enjoying Dunkin Donuts and playing games, were not expected to be silent and pay attention to the performers on stage. What was most frustrating was when members of SET would sit in front of the stage and talk amongst themselves. How is anyone supposed to take this event seriously if students from the event’s organization were being disrespectful. Not only were they disrespectful, they were unorganized. Performers had to sign up to perform, and when it was their time to take the stage a SET member would announce them. There were times in between acts were the MC was nowhere to be found and there was just dead space.

I think I am writing this blog with bias because I got up on the stage to perform a story that I wrote and I could tell that no one was listening to what I had to say. Yes my story was not the best and needed a lot of work. I was out of my mind with nerves and performed my adequate story like a train wreck. For my first time participating in an event at Stockton it was a nightmare. The environment that was created by audience (which was made up of mostly SET members) was not one to foster various forms of creativity. The atmosphere encouraged singers to try to sing while everyone in the audience would talk over them. It felt like a glorified karaoke event. Literally one  guy would continue to get on the stage and sing a song which he was blatantly reading off of his phone. Do not get me wrong the guy was not a half bad singer, but when he got to his third performance he was no longer entertaining.

My friends and I left when the previously mentioned gentleman was taking the stage for the third time. This was about 8:30 pm. The event started at 8pm. Needless to save there were not many acts. I commend SET for giving each participant a prize after their performance. Maybe if this perk was advertised, more performers would have showed up. The lack of performers could also be due to the fact that the semester began the day before the event, and students were not comfortable with attending an open mic.

Although I did not enjoy this event, I will attend the next and spread the word so there is a higher possibility that a focused audience and a more diverse group of performers will attend. I am really hoping some poets will come out on the next open mic night so when I attempt to tell a story no one will look at me like I have three heads.