The University Board will be hosting their annual talent show, “Eastern’s 106 & Talent” at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Grand Ballroom of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union to showcase the talents of Eastern’s students.

Shadezja Garrett, sophomore journalism major, and Kevin Greaves, junior physics major, will be hosting “Eastern’s 106 & Talent” and in between performances the two will be mentioning another upcoming talent show, “Rise to the Occasion: Talent Showcase” on April 16_, a performance that will bring in entertainers from other schools in the state.

The first place winner of Wednesday’s show will be representing Eastern for the statewide talent show, which will be at 7 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom of the Union.

Patrick Davis, the UB mainstage coordinator, said this year’s talent show theme and name was inspired by a show from Black Entertainment Television titled “106 and Park”, a 90-minute countdown music video show which featured hip-hop, R&B, reggae and dancehall music videos.

The talent show will be split into three different categories including variety, vocal and verbal. The variety category will feature performances including dance, modeling, acrobatics and juggling, the verbal category will include rap, poetry, spoken word and storytelling, and the vocal category will include singing.

To decide a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winner, the audience will be able to cast electronic votes for performers along with a panel of judges including B. James Griffin, Minority Affairs advisor, Omar Soloman, admissions counselor, and Brittany Staten, graduate assistant from Housing and Dining services.

Each judge will have a rubric to decide what performers did the best from each category, and then the judge panel will decide which performers will go into the top three for the prizes.

The 1st place performer will receive a prize of $300, 2nd place will win $150 and 3rd place will win $75.

“I hope people gain some inspiration and innovation for people to mix it up a bit, and that they will not be afraid to push the envelope,” Davis said. “We worked hard to plan this out regardless of what the oppositions were so I hope people just have a good time.”

The show is free and is open to the public.

“In the middle of this budget crisis it is really important to have some type of relief,” Davis said. “With all of the stress these things going on the least we can do is promote these events for students.”

 Abbey Whittington can be reached at 581-2812 or anwhittington@eiu.edu