As Eastern draws in families for the weekend, the school also draws from its funds to make sure Family Weekend is a success.

Ceci Brinker, the director of the Student Life Office, said Student Life is in charge of four big events during family weekend, including the headlining concert and the magician, two of the most popular events of Family Weekend.

On Friday and Saturday evenings, Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax” will be shown in the Buzzard Hall auditorium, and will be free to all who attend.

Brinker said the University Board’s special events committee is responsible for bringing in John Cassidy, who is a comedian, magician and balloon sculptor.

“It’s about $2,600 for us to bring him to Eastern, but that event is free,” she said.

Brinker said Bingo Bonanza, put on by the UB Special Events committee and the EIU Parents Club, uses its budget for prizes.

“They budget about $2,500 for prizes, and the parents club donates about $500 in prizes additionally,” Brinker said.

The EIU Parents Club Continental Breakfast on Saturday morning is free to all families and helps recruit new parents to the club, Brinker said.

The club also distributes scholarships over the weekend.

Brinker said the parents club invests about $1,400 in the breakfast.

The biggest cost of the weekend is the concert on Saturday, which will feature REO Speedwagon this year.

“The concert is hard to finalize for cost, but we do have some projected numbers because there are several expenses that go into the artist fee, operational cost and marketing,” Brinker said.

Other fees with the concert include hiring crews, technical costs from sound and lighting, feeding the crew and the band.

“A lot of those expenses we won’t know until after the show,” Brinker said.

She said the projection for the operational cost to put on the show is about $105,000.

Of that amount of money, Brinker said about $65,000 is the actual artist fee.

“Sometimes we have some expenses we don’t anticipate that come up and have to be added, but overall if you add it all up, we’re probably looking at about $110,000 for the weekend from Student Life,” she said.

Brinker said a lot of the money will be regained from concert tickets, which is the only event that Student Life charges for.

On average, the amount Student Life spends on Family Weekend has remained fairly consistent, Brinker said.

“One of the challenges we have is the cost of doing concerts continues to go up,” she said. “While the costs are rising, we’re trying to keep our ticket prices reasonable, especially on weekends when we’ll have parents here.”

Brinker said bringing in quality entertainment that attracts crowds and sells tickets can be challenging, especially considering the need to keep ticket prices at an amount that will be feasible.

“We actually raised the ticket prices this year,” she said. “This is the highest price we’ve done yet from raising it $7.”

Brinker said last year’s show featuring Chicago was more expensive because the group performed two different concerts, but given the economy, Student Life decided to keep it more economical and go back to just one show.

“Most of the time when we do two shows, it sells very well, but last year was a little disappointing,” she said.

This year, REO Speedwagon will be performing only one show on Saturday night.

“Family weekend is one of the more successful concerts, not just from a financial perspective but from a quality entertainment weekend because we get fantastic reviews,” she said. “There’s just such a wide appeal.”

Brinker said comparatively, the ticket prices for the concert are decent.

“Our prices are still well below what you would see in an urban area or bigger city,” she said. “The institution does a great job of keeping costs reasonable and low.”

Robyn Dexter can be reached at 581-2812 or redexter@eiu.edu.