A member of the Undergraduate Students Association Council’s Campus Events Commission encouraged students to vote for the Bruin Bash Referendum at a debate Wednesday. 

The USA Elections Board and the Daily Bruin co-hosted a series of debates between candidates in the upcoming USAC election. Referendums require a majority of voting students’ for approval, and referendums that adjust student fees – including the Bruin Bash Referendum – require at least 20% turnout.

The Bruin Bash Referendum would raise the quarterly Bruin Bash fee from $1.87 to $5. The fee increase would allow USAC to fully fund the annual Welcome Week concert, according to the referendum. The Bruin Bash fee was originally priced at $1.33 in 2013.

Salem Walsh, who is a current member of the CEC office, said during the debate that the commission currently relies on supplemental funds to cover the event’s costs. Walsh, a third-year applied linguistics and art history student, is also the sole candidate for campus events commissioner.

Previous Bruin Bash concerts have hosted artists such as Charli xcx and Doechii, but the commission’s funding allocation for the concert has been outpaced by rising venue and artist costs, Walsh said. She added that the fee increase would allow Bruin Bash to secure larger venues that can accommodate thousands of more students. 

“We’ve heard that students want larger, more well-known artists for Bruin Bash,” she said. “We’ve heard that they want to actually be able to attend the event. This referendum meets both of those needs.”