Program Board: Ludacris concert a success
A second visit to Mount Pleasant by rapper Ludacris was described as a great win by the Office of Student Activities and Involvement and Program Board, despite poor ticket sales.
While the overall cost of production is still being determined, the contract between Disturbing tha Peace Touring, Inc. and Central Michigan University agreed on a $75,000 guaranteed pay check to Christopher Brian Bridges, known by his stage name Ludacris. Tickets for the Sept. 28 concert started at $25 but were later reduced to buy one get one half off before being available for free.
"We measure success by asking ourselves: Did we accomplish our goal by bringing diverse entertainment to campus?" said Director of the Office of Student Activities and Involvement Damon Brown. "In this case we did. It was diverse and didn’t cost students anything, so it was a great win for us."
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Students who previously bought tickets had the opportunity to be reimbursed. They were provided with a new ticket for the same seat location for free, minus service and delivery fees.
Brown said 3,500 tickets were given out. Ticket Central counted 1,637 scanned tickets from people who attended the performance.
"The numbers that we have are closer to 2,500," Brown said. "We don’t know where the difference lies. We had close to 800-900 people on the floor and the first two sections from floor to the top were full. That puts us close to 2,500 not including the back section, which was pretty full."
There could have been an issue with how tickets were scanned at the event, Brown said, but they have decided to move on and not focus on confirming the actual attendance number.
"For us it's about if the show is well received by our students. We don’t look at a show and say '2,000 students were there, it was a success or failure,'" Brown said.
The Office of Student Activities discussed a free concert to kick off the year. Intended to be part of the Weeks of Welcome initiative, the free Dan and Shay concert tied into MAINstage was a prototype to see what free concert attendance might look like.
Ludacris was never intended to be a free show, but Brown said they had the chance to experiment with the free show for a future program.
Josh Palmer, Program Board president, said a free fall concert would be a combined effort but not strictly a Program Board show.
Those plans are dependent on having enough financial resources for a free show. Program Board's $315,000 overall budget would likely need additional support.
Overall, Palmer said feedback from concert was great, as was the integration of the concert into the return of Hip Hop Week.
"We struggle with the academic part (of our mission statement.) How do you make a concert educational? That’s one thing we were able to do with Hip Hop Week," Palmer said.
Keith Voeks, assistant director of university events, said it takes between 30-40 days for production costs to be billed. The total cost should be available in the next week, which includes lights, emergency personnel, vendors and costs associated with the hospitality rider for Ludacris' production crew.
