A bag of potato chips opens, people whisper in the front, girls giggle in the back and people come and go as they please. This has been the scene for the last three weeks in the Kirkham Auditorium, the new home of Music Outlet (a.k.a. MO) — once a little known quarry of rare musical jewels, now an open cavern of musical mediocrity.

Not that the music has changed; it’s the room that’s had the biggest impact. Originally, MO was housed in the Snow Recital Hall. Its seating and acoustics allowed the audience to be close to the performers and hear even the faintest melodic whisper. Musicians played, people came to quietly listen and cheer, and all were happy. And soon, 300 people or more were coming.

Herein lies the problem as the Activities Council sees it: The Recital Hall only seats 280, and we could never turn anyone away, everything needs to be as big as it possibly can or people may feel left out (heavy sarcasm implied).

So MO was deported to the Oscar A. Kirkham Building, against the wishes of those involved.

There, musicians play into buzzing amps and fight to be heard over the crowd, and the audience naturally pays more attention to their cell phones than the little person with a guitar far away on the stage.

The problem is not that too many people are trying to come — that’s amazing. The problem is this false notion that making things better means making them bigger, which is generally the attitude pushed by the Activities Program.

Why isn’t it all right to turn people away? I think we’ve all been turned away at devotionals, Comic Frenzy shows or the Galley. Most people accept the fact and try to get there earlier next time. So why is MO different?

The effort is appreciated, but both the audience and musicians want to go home to the Recital Hall. One of the last sources of quality music on campus is in danger of being lost. So Activities, are you there to support the student body or aren’t you?