With Family Weekend and the Three Dog Night concert less than two weeks away, more than 300 tickets have been sold.

Family Weekend is Oct. 9-11.

Director of student life Ceci Brinker said the amount is normal and ticket sales should pick up closer to the actual event.

“(The numbers) are low, but we’re still pretty optimistic that they’ll pick up in the next two weeks,” Brinker said. “Parents are still making plans to come to Family Weekend.”

Brinker said the tickets sales are slow, but one of the challenging aspects with promoting the event is notifying parents about the concert.

“I think part of the challenge is parents are used to the Family Weekend mailer that use to go out to them in the mail,” Brinker said. “Due to budget cuts, we cut that out about two years ago so that makes it really challenging for them to get information.”

Brinker also said students are the ones who receive all the information pertaining to the Family Weekend events.

“The challenge there is this is information that the students are passing on to parents,” Brinker said. “We’re still optimistic that sales will pick up.”

Brinker said another reason is parents are still trying to make their plans to come to Eastern, and the costs for lodging and other events during the weekend also need to be considered.

“There’s a football game there’s a price for, there’s the concert, there’s meals to pay for—all of those things factor in to whether or not it’s an affordable weekend I think,” Brinker said. “Overall, it’s a well-put together weekend; there’s something for everybody. There are probably about 10 to 15 different events and activities that don’t have a cost.”

Brinker said the goal for the weekend is to make sure Eastern students and their families are all having a good time over the weekend.

“We focus on mainly on the four events sponsored through University Board,” Brinker said. “We do some extra marketing, especially with the concert.”

Brinker said other than the concert UB is sponsoring three other events as well, including a movie event, a comedian juggler and bingo for families.

“Planning for the concert is going well, planning for the other events is going well,” Brinker said. “We don’t do all of the events for Family Weekend because Family Weekend is kind of big.”

Tickets for Three Dog Night can be purchased either through the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union’s website or in person at the ticket office. Tickets for the concert are $25 for the general public.

Luis Martinez can be reached at 581-2812 or lpmartinez@eiu.edu.