The College Union Board's (CUB) Spring 2008 concert, expected to be held Saturday, April 19 in the Student Recreation Center, is expected to be the biggest concert the organization has put together in quite some time.
The talent for the concert is still tentative. During Thanksgiving break over 1,600 students voted in an online survey. According to Alex Mazella, CUB director, Third Eye Blind was "the top vote-getter in the survey." Dashboard Confessional followed them in second place.
Prior to Winter break, CUB placed a bid with Third Eye Blind.
"We are still awaiting word from (Third Eye Blind) about whether or not they will accept or reject our bid," Mazella said. "If (the bid) is rejected, we can bid for a higher price if they reject due to price or we will have to consider the runner-ups from the survey results and send out bids to them as well."
When CUB first requested concert funding from the Student Finance Board (SFB), they presented the board with the choice of either Kendall Hall or the rec. center.
Allowing SFB to select the venue was "highly unconventional," according to Leonardo Acevedo, SFB executive director.
"Given the numbers for the talent, it made more sense financially to have the concert in the rec. center," he said.
SFB believed that having the concert in Kendall would limit the potential number of tickets sold, since the rec. center has three times the seating capacity of Kendall Hall.
"SFB chose this venue to accommodate the highest number of students," Acevedo said.
According to Mazella, holding the concert in the rec. center would incur an additional $12,000 to cover the costs of a stage, barricade, light and sound system and added staffing costs, but the rec. center price could be offset by more attendance.
"SFB felt that with the increased capacity, that the extra $12,000 would be covered by additional ticket sales," Mazella said.
Tickets for the concert will cost $15 each for students at the College and $20 each for other students. In keeping with the College's policy, there is a two-ticket limit that can be purchased per person.
CUB is projecting about 1,000 ticket sales to College students, and 200 ticket sales to other New Jersey college students.
The projected ticket sales and the ticket prices were the end product of a series of negotiations between CUB and SFB.
"CUB originally stated that they were extremely confident that they could sell out the rec. center. Acknowledging that CUB was perhaps too overconfident, the board decided to accept a decreased estimate in ticket sales," Acevedo said.
This was also to protect CUB from reaching into its box office line if it is unable to sell all of the tickets.
According to Acevedo, "In the event that CUB does not sell the number of tickets mentioned before, they will cover that loss out of their box office line, which is controlled by the SFB," adding that "the box office is essentially a reserve account for exactly these types of events, in which they may not be able to sell all of the tickets."
However, Acevedo is not worried about the success of the event.
"We are confident that if CUB holds (itself) accountable and markets (its) concert effectively, they will have no problem selling out, considering they can sell up to 25 percent of the available tickets to other N.J. schools," he said.
This concert, although still in the works, is set to be the biggest event the College has organized in recent years.
"This is the first concert with a projection this high that has been funded by SFB in my four years as being a part of CUB," Mazella said. "No event in the past four years has ever sold over the 875 seats in Kendall."
