THE NEED FOR PRECURSOR OBSERVATIONS TO CHOOSE THE OPTIMAL WFIRST FIELDS IN ORDER TO SELECT THE OPTIMAL FIELDS FOR THE WFIRST MICROLENSING SURVEY INCLUDING BOTH THE NUMBER OF FIELDS AND THEIR LOCATION WE MUST KNOWN THE MICROLENSING EVENT RATE IN A SUPERSET OF THE LIKELY WFIRST MICROLENSING FIELDS. UNFORTUNATELY THE NEAR-INFRARED (NIR) MICROLENSING EVENT RATE FOR THE PROPOSED WFIRST TARGET FIELD REGION IS POORLY CONSTRAINED INTRODUCING UNCERTAINTY INTO THE OPTIMAL FIELD PLACEMENT AND EXPECTED PLANETARY YIELDS FOR THE WFIRST MICROLENSING MISSION. THE BEST ESTIMATES OF THE EVENT RATE (SEE SUMI ET AL. 2013) CURRENTLY RELY ON OPTICAL OBSERVATIONS OF REGIONS OF THE CENTRAL BULGE WHERE THE EXTINCTION IS SUFFICIENTLY LOW (AI<2) AND USE GALACTIC MODELS TO EXTRAPOLATE TOWARD THE INNER BULGE. THIS TENSION IS BEST ADDRESSED BY CONDUCTING A WIDE-FIELD GROUND-BASED SURVEY OF THE PROPOSED WFIRST SURVEY AREA ACROSS A WAVELENGTH RANGE SIMILAR TO THE 0.927 2.000 M COVERAGE OF W1493 THE WIDEBAND FILTER FOR THE WIDE-FIELD IMAGER THAT WILL OBSERVE THE MICROLENSING FIELDS AT THE HIGHEST CADENCE. THIS WILL PROVIDE AN EMPIRICAL MEASURE OF THE NIR EVENT RATE ACROSS THE WFIRST TARGET FIELDS FOR THE BRIGHTER SOURCES THAT WFIRST WILL DETECT.