MICHAEL ALAHOUZOS
Staff Writer
Students are likely to be outnumbered by the public at March 25th’s Something Corporate concert at Alumni Park, which has already sold out all of the available public tickets, yet just over 150 of the 750 student designated tickets are available.
The Student Programming Board is responsible for the upcoming Something Corporate concert. The board’s past events include Fall Fling and the Battle of the Bands, as well as ongoing activities such as the Thursday night films, the Noontime Concert Series and the upcoming Spring Fling event at Disneyland.
As of Tuesday night, Ticketmaster’s public sale was over, though more public tickets may be opened later this week. Of the 750 public tickets, 555 had been sold, and about 200 reserved for the Something Corporate Fan Club, the artists, their booking agencies and family.
“I’m pretty sure Switchfoot, at the height of the band’s popularity, did not sell tickets this quickly,” said Justin Schneider, Student Activities Coordinator, on Wednesday evening. “Almost all of those 164 student tickets have been sold in 42 hours.”
For anyone with a student ID, student tickets are still available at the Smothers Box Office for a discounted price of $10. Tickets on sale to the public cost $15.
The concert will mark the first time an arena-sized rock act has hit Pepperdine since Switchfoot performed on the field last February, and will also be the second show Something Corporate has played here, the first being three years ago.
The Postal Service, Ben Folds and the legendary Bob Dylan were also recent considerations. Last semester, Dylan turned down an offer made by the Student Programming Board (he then toured four schools in the UC system in the fall). Likewise, pop-rock group Yellowcard turned down an offer of $50,000.
Students who were left wanting more after a successful concert series that included Dashboard Confessional and Third Eye Blind will have their chance to rock out when Something Corporate,
opening acts Mêlée, Roundabout and Battle of the Bands winners The Sindicate take the stage.
The entire event will cost the PB roughly $48,000. The talent cost for Something Corporate alone is only a fraction of that, set at $23,000 (Gonzaga University paid $28,000 for Fox’s O.C. television-show rockers this past February.
Prices for previous talents have varied. Dashboard Confessional’s cost was considered relatively low by the school’s standards, while Third Eye Blind became the most expensive concert of the past three years.
“We got Third Eye Blind because we were starving for a concert and nothing else was coming up,” said Junior David Lock, executive director of finance and administration for PB.
It becomes extremely difficult to program a concert with a large cross section of students on campus due to a number of factors, including cost, availability and compliance with Pepperdine’s Christian Mission Statement, Doug Hurley, Student Activities Coordinator said.
“Something Corporate swears in a couple of their songs,” said Junior David Brooks, concert director for PB.
Because of this the PB and the band agreed that Something Corporate wouldn’t use explicit language in the show.
Upperclassmen can’t help but remember the Sum 41 controversy from Spring 2003, when the pop-punk band agreed to converge their tour with the Ataris’ tour to bring an eight-act performance to Alumni Park. Listings for this show ran on the bands’ Web sites for days, but the performance was suddenly axed when an aricle in the December issue ofRolling Stone surfaced detailing Sum 41’s taste for hard drugs and strippers.
“We never had a contract with Sum 41,” Hurley said. “We had talks with the band about them coming here. We decided not to invite them because of a number of issues beyond swearing.”
The line between what a band can and cannot say on stage remains unclear.
“I’m not sure where the line is,” Hurley said. “We’re working with the band (Something Corporate) to ensure a successful show for everyone.”
The opener’s for Something Corporate will come for a relatively cheap price. Both Roundabout and the Sindicate are working unpaid, while Mêlée will receive a small check for $500.
Roundabout, hailing from Seattle, Wash., will be driving from their hometown to play the show, and then returning home without any checks of their own.
“Our goal,” Brooks said, “is to make the absolute best show for the absolute best price.”
Last semester, the board made the decision to save the fall concert budget until this spring’s concert. The initial allocations for the fall semester were $25,000. A majority of that money was carried over to this semester’s $19,00 budget.
“Concerts don’t come cheap,” Brooks said. “You could put ‘Joe’s Band’ on a professionally lit stage with professional sound and it would still cost $25,000.”
Public tickets for Something Corporate went on sale at 10 a.m. on Friday via Ticketmaster, though a signature from Something Corporate’s management had yet to be produced. By 11:45 a.m., 200 of the 750 non-student tickets available had already been bought.
Though the reserved student ticket sales went on sale about the same time, the initial push for the selling the student tickets was Monday at midnight by the fountain, where nearly 70 tickets were sold by the hour’s end.
“We’re not trying to sell a billion tickets,” Brooks said. Though Alumni Park has the capacity to hold as many as 15,000 people, the low number of student and public tickets being sold will ensure a more intimate experience with the bands.
“The key idea each semester,” Brooks said, “is we get $20 of every student’s money at the beginning of the year, and then try to find events that give back that money.” With the Something Corporate concert, the SPB hopes to give back to as many students as are willing to come. “We will take an empty grass field, and turn it into a professional concert venue,” he said.
Alumni Park will open at 6:30 p.m. on March 25th for Something Corporate. The In-N-Out Cookout Trailer will be selling burgers and fries on the field. Show starts at 7 p.m. Student tickets are available at the Smothers Box Office.
03-17-2005