According to FUSA Vice President of Programming Bridget Hennessey, a large-scale spring concert rivaling the success of 112 will not happen.
“I have a big issue with having a big band and not selling a lot of tickets,” Hennessey said.
Hennessey’s decision to scale down the spring concert is not due to budgetary constraints. Rather, she does not want another concert catastrophe like Ben Harper one year ago. Harper attracted only 1,100 students and cost FUSA upwards of $75,000, according to Hennessey.
“We have the money (for a big spring concert), it’s just not cost-effective. We don’t want to do what’s happened in the past.”
Adding to the spring concert troubles is the deterioration in the relationship established with Sacred Heart University for the 112 concert. While Sacred Heart received blocks of tickets for the 112 show at Fairfield student prices, FUSA has still not heard whether or not Fairfield students will be given a discount for Sacred Heart’s upcoming Ludacris show.
“They have not given us any tickets,” Hennessey said. “Their follow through has been pretty bad.”
Unfortunately for FUSA, these slow movements might be the result of staff changes within Sacred Heart’s student government.
“The deal with Sacred Heart is kind of interesting,” Hennessey said. “The person that we dealt with for 112 resigned from their programming board due to a conflict. We are waiting to hear from them how much they are going to discount us on their concert tickets.”
That discount will probably be nothing, according to Tenequa Wright, Sacred Heart University’s concert chair. Wright said she has only been “briefly told about” the agreement in the past to give Fairfield students a discount and when asked if there were any plans for a discount to be offered, Wright said, “No, not now.”
Sarah Steinnecker, Sacred Heart’s vice president of the student events team, echoed Wright’s position.
“We haven’t discussed it (a discount) yet. Normally, we leave it at $28 for the general public and other college students,” Steinnecker said.
However, despite not having the partnership in writing, Hennessey is hopeful that FUSA’s good relationship with Sacred Heart’s student body president could lead to an agreement.
Despite these problems, FUSA is still planning on having a spring concert during this spring’s May Day festivities. Student government officials are looking into having a concert the Friday night before April 27, when the Dogwoods dance will be held.
“The situation with Friday night is that we have looked into doing a concert,” Hennessey said. “The problem is that there are no bands that will draw a crowd within our price range.”
No definite plans have been made yet, according to Hennessey, but she added that students would have other things to look forward to this spring despite the lack of a big name band.
“Dogwoods will be off campus for the first time this year and it will be a dinner dance cruise,” she said. “There will be a cash bar (on the boat).”
The cost of moving Dogwoods off campus and onto a ship was minimal, according to Hennessey, with the total price running only “a couple hundred over.”
Normally, FUSA and other student organizations work together to establish the programming for May Day. However, this year the festivities will be a collaboration between FUSA and the Inter-Residence Hall Government.
“Typically, FUSA and a number of various organizations work together to program on May Day but that is not going to be the case this year. IRHG has decided to make it their day with us running Dogwoods that night,” Hennessey said.
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