Tuesday night in Ackerman Grand Ballroom, the Mighty Mic concert pulled a smaller crowd compared to 2008, but student organizers called the event a success.
The “Benefit Concert for Burma,” as the Mighty Mic Human Rights Awareness Group titled their third annual concert, suffered a few hitches prior to kick-off; students filtered into Ackerman Grand Ballroom an hour after the third annual concert was scheduled to begin.
Also, because of unstable political conditions in his resident Thailand, Khin Omar, a Burmese exiled dissident, was unable to come out to speak at the event as planned.
Despite the slow start, approximately 1,000 students made it out to the event. The number marked a small dip from the year before, when close to 1,500 students attended the concert in 2008.
This year, Mighty Mic opted to solely cover human rights issues in Burma, rather than attempt to bring into light the conflicts occurring in various countries.
Fourth-year history and political science student Rudy Salinas, who helped with fundraising and marketing, explained that the pooled funding of different human rights groups on which Mighty Mic relied in former years had to be replaced by sponsorship from external organizations like Causecast and the magazine Beautiful | Decay.
“We’re having different “˜orgs’ that have been able to support us throughout the process; we’re giving them tables so they can also promote their cause,” Salinas said.
Edith Mirante was the first of the night’s scheduled guest speakers. Mirante heads Project Maje, an information project spreading awareness about human rights and the environmental situation in Burma.
About the hip-hop scene in Burma, Mirante said, “It’s kind of an underground thing, and since the monks’ uprising in 2007, it’s gotten much more political ““ which means much more dangerous, in Burma.”
The event was free to UCLA students; “Free Burma” T-shirt sales brought in approximately a couple hundred dollars. Combined with donations from attendees, the event raised $3,000, which will go to support Doctors Without Borders and the U.S. Campaign for Burma.
One of the concerns, when planning a benefit like Mighty Mic is converging the entertainment aspect of the night with the more sobering purpose behind the music.
Connie Lo, the co-director of Mighty Mic, stressed that the handful of celebrity-starred memories students might leave with should take a back seat to gaining a better grasp of the cause through testimonials from the speakers.
“These are the people that really touch our hearts,” the fifth-year biochemistry and comparative literature student said. “These are the people that we really want the event to revolve around, that we really want the students to focus on.”