After the usual weeks of rumor and speculation, UGBC has announced that Third Eye Blind and Nelly will perform at the annual spring concert on April 20 at 5 p.m. in Conte Forum. Despite concerns over potential cancellations due to a high number of transports at recent concerts, UGBC was given a green light by the administration in February to bring a concert to campus. Tickets will be sold for $30, starting on April 3 at 8 a.m. online.
“[The] administration gave us the go-ahead in February to have a spring concert given that we would accept some recommendations put forth by the concert review committee that was appointed back in the fall to address the high number of transports,” Mike Zarrilli, UGBC Executive Director of Campus Entertainment and A&S ’12, said in an e-mail. “One of the recommendations was to have an earlier concert to limit the amount of pregaming.”
Because the concert process started later than normal as a result of the deliberations with the Student Programs Office (SPO), UGBC was provided with only one available date in Conte Forum, April 20. As a result, many acts were not free to perform.
“We looked into a variety of acts to both open and headline the concert,” Zarrilli said. “Unfortunately with only one date and such short notice (only about two months), many of the artists that we looked into were unavailable.”
The two acts will be preceded by a student DJ, Pizo aka John Pierson, CSOM ’12, starting at 5 p.m. At 6 p.m. Third Eye Blind will take the stage, followed by Nelly at 7:30 p.m., according to Zarrilli.
Despite the questions over whether or not the concert would happen, Zarrilli said he was happy with the acts who will be performing, and said he and the UGBC hoped to respond directly to student concerns after some disappointment over the J. Cole and Wale concert last spring.
“To be honest, we’re extremely lucky to have gotten the two headliners that we did,” Zarrilli said. “Judging by ticket sales and the feedback that we got for the J. Cole and Wale concert, students at BC wanted bigger names to come for our Spring Concert this year, and we tried our best to make this happen.”
The price of $30 is slightly higher than previous years, which Zarrilli attributed to higher than normal costs for the acts that will be performing. However, he went on to say that the costs are still relatively close to the cost for concerts at similar schools, and that revenue from the spring concert will be used to help fund UGBC’s other major spring event, Modstock, which typically occurs later in the semester.
“It is still a heavily subsidized concert and is either in line or cheaper than some of our rival schools who are only bringing in one of these artists,” Zarrilli said.
In a survey taken last month asking students what their primary concern on campus was, UGBC found that the most frequent response was having a spring concert, a tangible event that students frequently enjoy. After the cancellation of the fall concert as a result of high transports, many hoped that the spring concert would return this semester.
“When it came down to it, we were looking to take the money that we had budgeted and put on a show that would get as many BC students excited as possible,” Zarrilli said.
