This petition stands to protest the current plan by the CalArts Student Council to employ outside musical talent at this year’s Halloween Party. The CalArts Halloween Party is a celebrated tradition that extends beyond the school and its students, and has been as vibrant and diverse as the institution itself. Costumes, performances, and other design elements were as well crafted as any work of art to be seen during the regular school year, brought out by the environment of students creating for students. We do not want to misrepresent ourselves to our guests as anything less than one of the best arts schools in the country. We do not want them to think we are just another college playing the same Top 40 hits, because that is not CalArts. Most importantly, this is not an appropriate usage of tuition money, especially considering the vast array of talented student DJs and bands that would easily fill the slots for free and offer a much more diverse range of music, even incorporating some of the same choices as a hired DJ. We acknowledge that sometimes it is beneficial for CalArts to bring in guest artists for performances and residencies. However, the Halloween Party is not the appropriate setting for such an occurrence. The plan of the CalArts Student Council is not to bring in somebody respected in their field in order to offer us a new perspective, but to bring in somebody to play pop music, not matching the tastes and aesthetic values of the majority of the student body. To exclude student performers from the bulk of the Halloween Party and instead use tuition money for an outside hire is not only offensive to the student body as a whole, it goes against the very tenets of this school. Signed, A Concerned Group of CalArts Students