By Samantha Berkhead
News Editor
Instead of performing in the Reilly Center like past Spring Concert acts, this year’s bands set up their equipment somewhere a little more underground.
Due to insufficient ticket sales, Breathe Carolina and The Ready Set performed in the The Rathskeller tonight to a sold-out crowd of 300.
Steve Kuchera, assistant director of the Center for Activities, Recreation and Leadership (CARL), said only 87 tickets had been sold by Monday. Mike Posner had sold 1,700 tickets by this time last year. Sean Kingston had sold 2,500 tickets in 2010, Kuchera said.
“I have heard mixed reviews on the selection,” Kuchera said of Breathe Carolina and The Ready Set.
“Some students said ‘This is the first concert that I will actually go to;’ others said, ‘It’s only $10, why not go?’ and others said they’ve never heard of them.”
While the Campus Activities Board (CAB), the group responsible for putting on the annual concert, does not receive a specific budget for major events like this, CAB must take into consideration all events it sponsors throughout the year.
Kuchera said the group tried to get acts that would bring an exciting performance to St. Bonaventure.
“CAB selected Breathe Carolina and The Ready Set to perform because they are high-energy bands that put on a great live show,” he said. “CAB put out a survey of other artists, but the winner, Gym Class Heroes, was unable to commit to a date. CAB re-surveyed the students in the Hickey, but those artists’ prices skyrocketed and CAB’s budget was unable to support those acts.”
Senior Levi Trimble, who works on CAB and Quick Center tech crews for campus performances, said CAB did what it could with the money it had.
“The school doesn’t have as much money as people think it does, and people tend to not realize how much bands cost and how much money we actually have,” he said.
CAB originally planned to cancel the concert and pay the bands half of what they would have received had they performed.
“The bands said they were still going to play the show,” Trimble said. “That’s why we had to move it to the Skeller, because it wasn’t going to be worth it to have 87 people in the Reilly Center.”
CAB and CARL worked in conjunction to market the event to students throughout recent weeks, Kuchera said.
“(We used) local radio and newspaper advertisements, Facebook advertisements, notices on the CAB and Rathskeller Facebook page and St. Bonaventure’s Twitter, posters, flyers, word of mouth, mailings, informed local high schools, colleges and universities, businesses and played music in the Reilly Center and Hickey and email blasts of fliers and song links.”
Despite the fact the annual concert won’t be held in a large venue, Trimble and Kuchera both said the downsize had benefits for both the university and the two acts.
“(If the concert had been at the Reilly Center) it would have been a two-day work event instead of a one-day event for me,” Trimble said.
Kuchera said the event gave concertgoers an intimate experience while saving money at the same time.
“CAB will save money from the cost of sound, lights, stage, outside and SBU security, catering and the arena fee,” he said. “Those who attended the show in the Skeller got an up-close and personal concert and had the opportunity to meet the artists.”
Trimble said the two bands may have been a bad fit for last night’s primarily college-age audience.
“Mike Posner didn’t do a half-bad job, from what people have said,” Trimble said. “A lot of people liked him. His Auto-Tune didn’t break, like Sean Kingston’s did. This year, it was a totally different environment. I mean, the Ready Set was featured on the Disney Channel last week. That tells you what type of crowd they pull in.”
berkhesj10@bonaventure.edu
