Spring concert at less than half capacity
The University Board sold 1,200 tickets for the spring concert Saturday night, but they were hoping to sell 3,000 said Ceci Brinker, the director of Student Life.
The concert featured performances by The Far East Movement and Mike Posner in the Lantz Arena.
Kelsey Warren, a junior business marketing major, is the concert coordinator elect for the UB. She said 3,000 to 3,200 sold tickets is considered a sold-out show and is the ideal.
“It was Holy Saturday,” Warren said. “One thousand two hundred is kind of a bummer but I think it was pretty good considering it was Easter weekend.”
Warren said while ticket sales are important, they are not the main aspect of the concert.
“We wanted to put on a high quality show for those who were there,” Warren said. “We thought we did that.”
Warren said the ticket sales could potentially impact future shows since profits from ticket sales can help fund other UB events such as Family Weekend or even the next spring concert. She said the money from ticket sales only goes toward funding events.
While a portion of the student activities fee goes toward funding both the Family Weekend and spring concert, Warren said that does not necessarily give them enough money so the type of shows might be affected.
Warren said the UB considers the concert to be a learning experience and will start surveying students for potential artists sooner. She said the UB had difficulty booking artists because they kept getting mixed answers from students.
“The earlier you can book artists the more availability they have,” Warren said.
She also said the UB will try new marketing strategies to bring in more members of the surrounding community. Warren said these strategies would include more than just posters or radio commercials, but will hopefully be related to the artist.
This semester, Warren said the UB gave out fortune cookies, which related to The Far East Movement and Easter candy because the concert was on Easter weekend.
She said the marketing techniques will also depend on the artist booked. Some artists, such as Drake who sold out last year, can sell themselves Warren said.
Warren said the UB enjoyed working with both Posner and The Far East Movement and they said they had a good time at Eastern.
“Regardless of ticket sales, the concert had high energy,” Warren said.
Seth Schroeder can be reached at 581-2812
