Plans for stadium concert fall through without band

The USG's plans to provide students with a spring concert in Princeton Stadium have been put on hold for at least another year. The USG still intends to put on a spring concert in the future, but the stadium has been ruled out as a possible venue for a concert in spring 2002.

Various factors contributed to the cancellation, the largest of which had to do with the band the USG was pursuing, said USG social chair West Owens '03, who has been working on a spring stadium concert for more than a year.

"We were looking at A-list acts, bands that get offers all the time," he said. "But when we came down to it, the band just couldn't play."

One of the greatest obstacles in putting on a stadium concert is finding an act that can sell between 25,000 and 30,000 tickets, Owens said.

In the fall, the USG made efforts to prepare for a stadium concert in the spring. Although the USG attempted to save money in the fall, Owens said, it did not affect the USG's fall programming.

Additionaly, the USG shifted the election of social chair from the fall to the spring to ease the task of planning such a large-scale event.

"It's hard for a social chair to come in in January and attempt to start planning a concert immediately," Owens said.

Because of contractual obligations and privacy issues, representatives of they USG said it could not disclose the bands it was pursuing or the amount of money on the line, but Owens said the USG was in serious negotiations with a major act.

Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Students Tom Dunne, also faculty advisor to the USG, referred to the band as a "big draw," "high profile" and "something students would definitely be excited about."

"We got pretty far in negotiations with one band," he said. "What transpired is that we had communications with the band, and they only recently decided to turn down the offer."

The band did not tell the USG its rationale for turning down the offer, which was music industry standard, Dunne said, but added that it likely involved a better offer coming along.

"A lot of communication [with musical acts] is one way," he said. "We were in conversation with a band for months. They asked for very detailed information, which would imply they were interested, and then they just turned down the offer."

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The USG is still negotiating with different acts, Owens said, but time has run out on a stadium concert.

"At some point we had to call [negotiations] off for this year," he said. "You're basically on a timeline and it would be pretty much impossible for this spring."

Compared to putting on a spring concert in Richardson Auditorium, Dillon Gym or an outdoor venue, a stadium concert is a much larger undertaking, he said.

"A show in the stadium represents probably the most ambitious undertaking for a show on any college campus," Owens said. "You have to deal with multiple variables, all of which require incredible amounts of planning and logistics."

The USG sets aside a flexible budget of $50,000 for the spring concert, but like the Willie Nelson concert last year, that budget can be expanded depending on the circumstances. Often, however, money is not the only bargaining tool at stake, Owens said.

"These are bands that are regularly offered hundreds of shows and tons of cash to play everywhere," he said. "They do not need exposure and can turn down shows at will. A large amount of persuasion is needed.

"In addition, a stadium concert includes all of the same problems as a regular show, except magnified a hundred times."

The USG has promised that a spring concert of some sort is guaranteed, even though a concert will not be happening in the stadium this year.

Dunne said the USG is now dealing with a much wider range of artists than it was before. He added that the acts would be less popular than the type of act for which it had originally planned, featuring performers such as Ben Folds Five and Busta Rhymes that would not fill enough seats to be put in a stadium.

To increase the variety, the USG concert committee formed a sub-committee to put on a series of smaller concerts at campus.

"We felt that some of our favorite acts were too small for the fall or spring concerts and not always the kind of thing that the eating clubs were booking," David Morris '03, a member of the committee, said in an e-mail.