Trace Adkins, Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley, Jo Dee Messina and Keith Urban (twice) - country music concerts are a hot commodity at Ball State University, especially since Jan. 1, 2004. Since that date, two out of nine concerts by major recording artists at John R. Emens Auditorium and Worthen Arena have featured non-country artists. That includes Tuesday's performance by B.B. King; the other show was Muse in April 2005.
"Country is enjoying a resurgence," Robert Myers, director of Emens Auditorium, said. "You're seeing more and more country artists doing well in major urban populations. Country music has been historically the music of the Heartland - the more rural areas."
Almost half of the student population likes country music, he said, but he did not provide any formal or recent poll for proof.
Where's the Rock? Or hip-hop and pop for that matter? It's expensive and risky and in some cases, that is enough to stop trying, said three major players in Ball State concert planning. Organizations have tried to get Dave Matthews and Kanye West to play on campus as recently as last year, but price and availability are only two factors in getting acts to come here. However, hope exists for major concerts to appeal to other audiences at Ball State in the future.
THE COST
Musicians charge artist fees for showing up. Those fees can fluctuate depending on the artists' demand, popularity, awards they have won and the venue. According to Celebrity Access, a service that lists artist fees and agent info, rock, pop and country artists' fees reach the six-figure mark.
The Killers cost $50,000 to $100,000, Jack Johnson costs $75,000 to $100,000, Keith Urban costs $100,000 to $300,000 and John Mayer and The White Stripes cost $250,000 to $500,000. Madonna's rate is $500,000 to $1.5 million.
In addition to the artist fees, costs to set up light, sound and stage equipment must be added, and artists usually have a list of demands, which is called a rider. Travel expenses have to be included too, Janice Altland, assistant director of campus programs, said.
Brian Dietz, program adviser of University Program Board, said that to break even on a show, ticket prices would be higher than what some students are willing to pay for an artist that cost $100,000.
Dietz gave estimates of what it could cost to put on a show. He said in addition to a $100,000 artist, production could cost $5,000 to $8,000 plus $10,000 for publicity and ads, plus $2,000 for flyers and posters. Divide that by 3,410 usable seats at Emens, and a concert ticket would cost between $34.31 and $35.19 before processing fees. That price is if Emens counts on breaking even with a guaranteed sellout. Venues like Emens estimate how well tickets will sell, and price tickets to break even with anywhere from 1/3 to all of the tickets sold. That means tickets can easily climb into the $50 dollar range.
In a survey of 50 Ball State students, students said they spent an average of $34 on concert tickets.
"We got that weird balance of students who want tickets as cheap as they can get it," Dietz said. "For students, prices between 15 and 30 is the breaking point. For the level of artists we want to do, people don't want to pay 30 dollars."
After the venue breaks even on the event, the artist can get as much as 90 percent of the ticket sales profit, Myers said.
If Emens thinks the venue will not break even or can cover the cost for an event, it would have to charge the remaining cost to ticket buyers, he said.
Larger colleges, like Indiana University, have larger budgets to attract talent, Myers said. These types of places will pay as much as they want to get an act they want, and that inflates the price everyone else would have to pay, he said.
MAJOR PLAYERS AND MAJOR PROBLEMS
Concerts come to Ball State's campus through UPB - the student programming board - or through Emens. Each of those organizations has its philosophy for entertaining the campus and community.
UPB searches for acts the board thinks students would be excited to see and then finds an open date to play at Emens or another venue, Brian Dietz, program advisor of UPB said. The board then creates a budget, discusses the possibility at its meetings and votes whether to pursue the act, he said.
After that, administration takes a look at the proposal to see if the finances work out and Thomas Spangler, associate vice president, finance and assistant treasurer would sign the contract.-á
The biggest risk for UPB is a financial one, Dietz said. That's why the organization focuses on cheaper entertainment like movies and lesser-known comedians, he said.
"Artists are charging so much for what students want to see versus what they are willing to pay," he said. "So if we only got 3,000 seats, and if an artist is $100,00, that's 35- to 40-dollar tickets."
"We don't have a $100,000 budget to start with. We can't promise something that we can't make up," he said.
Bruce Morgan, director of student center and programming, said UPB usually has a budget between $75,000 and $80,000.
Dietz said if UPB loses money on a concert, it affects programs for the rest of the year.
"Anything is possible if we can find a show. We can take somewhat of a risk; it just depends on how great that risk is. If the risk is $50,000, that's more than half our budget," he said. "If we lose that, we lose more than half of our programs. If we take a smaller risk, It's much more doable."
The organization focuses on entertaining the student body, he said, so having concerts that will attract students from Indiana University and other areas does not make sense.
"If we're going to open up a concert to Indianapolis, seats sell out and 10 percent of them are Ball State students, I'd rather focus on things that Ball State students are the primary target for," Dietz said.
Altland agrees with Dietz. Students ask her about advertising to students near Indianapolis and at IU, but she thinks concerts at Ball State "should be for us."
"Why, if we have 18,000 students, can't we get 3,000 to go to Emens? Or even if it's a bigger show, but they don't think that way," she said.
More students helping UPB to program events would help make events better on campus, Dietz said and students are welcome to come to its meetings at 9:15 p.m. in the lower level of the L.A. Pettinger Student Center.
Myers said the purpose of Emens is more than entertainment.-á
"My mission is to provide cultural opportunities, and entertainment is a means to an end, and I only do it if it's cost-effective," he said. "I welcome an opportunity to help foster that programming, but we have to look at some funding issues."
Myers said he buys major country artists and other events based on previous success and a relatively low risk. He also said artists attractive to students should be UPB's responsibility.
"Putting on any performing arts event or concert or comedian, there is a significant amount of risk, but we try to mediate that by knowing what their sales have been in other places, and I use my best judgment in that regard," he said.
The risk is that if the auditorium does not sell enough tickets, it loses money and has a harder time bringing future acts.
"What we run into is that a lot of the acts that students want to bring are not cost-effective," he said.
Three factors that play into bringing a musician to perform, he said: Seating capacity, population base for the university and community and price tag of the artist.
"We're in a situation where we're sort of wedge between two much large markets in Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, and a lot of acts are going to choose to go to those larger population bases," he said.-á
Financial risks can be shared by a co-promoter or can be taken entirely by the promoter like Mitchell Productions for Keith Urban's concert, he said.
Also, those areas can afford to take risk on higher priced artists in bigger venues. Some artists, however, prefer to play smaller venues. Myers said he tried to get folk act Nickel Creek to play Emens, but the venue was too large for them at the time.
Some artists, like Dave Matthews, wanted to play for specific types of colleges and venues, he said. Tours designed for a certain kind of venue may not work at Emens, and placing equipment for an arena tour would be too costly and difficult. Students also like to move around during up-beat concerts, like rock concerts, and that is something Emens cannot accommodate, Myers said.
"The other issue we get into with other what I would call student-oriented bands is the whole mosh concept where they want open floor. We can't take out permanent seating or the main floor and don't want to do for safety reasons," he said.
ONE FOR ALL, ALL FOR NONE
Targeting what students want is something that both UPB and Emens find challenging. When both asked students who they wanted and how much they would pay, they found a large discrepancy.
The most popular act listed on Facebook.com's Pulse is "DMB," better known as Dave Matthews Band. Whether it's his band, or just Dave, UPB and Emens tried to get Matthews in past years.
When Janice Altland advised the programming board, she knew he would be in high demand, so much so that she has a file on Dave Matthews.
When Altland attempted to get Dave Matthews, the competition was between Ball State and IU, she said. Myers said other universities were also in the mix and said he plays at Verizon Wireless Music Center in Noblesville regularly.-á
"Three years ago he was doing a solo acoustic [tour]. He wanted to go to midsize colleges with a small auditorium and [it was] everything we wanted," Altland said. "And we're like 'oh my god,' and it was at a price. Business-wise, to me it was clear that we would sell that out in a second.
"I know we would sell out for Dave Matthews in a second. The only thing I would be regretful for is that we wouldn't have enough tickets," she said. "I think the first offer of this was $60,000. Now, him going out solo-acoustic, that's good ... you're still going to have to have a sound system, but it does cut down on the other expenses, which is a whole 'nother thing about concerts."
She said that because UPB did not have $60,000 in its account, it could not do the concert, even though she and the students knew it would be an instant sell-out.
In the fall, Myers said he tried to bring Kanye West, but his cost was too much for what he considered to be affordable for students. He said he also asked about The Killers, The Strokes and O.A.R. several times, but couldn't make a deal.
The Strokes could not come because of their available dates, he said. Most artists prefer to tour in the summer and go in the studio in the winter, he said, and finding an open date while students are on campus is a problem. Also, he said, Emens is busy in months like October when it has events on almost every day.
Myers also tried to bring Don Henley recently, but he said that in addition to high-ticket prices, the date was near the Muncie End of Summer Jam.
Atland and Myers agreed that students living in the Midwest may not catch on to rising artists on the coast.
When John Mayer released his first album, Altland wanted to bring him here even though she didn't know who he was because she read that he sold out every small hall was affordable at the time.
"I put it out to the students and they didn't know who he was. Now he gets $250,000 to $500,000," she said.
Several times, rock and popular acts were brought to campus and failed. UPB took a $25,000 hit when funk musician George Clinton performed in Worthen Arena in 1998, Altland said.
Muse, Matchbox 20 and Tori Amos did not fare well either, Myers said.One reason he thinks this happened is because of a misconception by local concertgoers.
"There is a schism between the reality and the perception. There is the sense that students believe they should be able to attend a concert at a lower ticket price here than Indianapolis, which I don't quite know how to break through that because our cost isn't that significantly less," he said.
Myers considers a concert successful if it fills Emens to about 2/3 capacity, but it depends on the break-even point.
THE FUTURE
A concert fund is in place to help UPB responsibly fund concerts, Bruce Morgan said. Profit from the Calendar of Events planner goes into a reserve fund so if UPB wanted to book a midsize band, it would hav money to protect itself from a loss, he said. This way, a loss would not affect future programs.
The fund now has $15,000 in the account, Morgan said, and it would need $25,000 in order to have a safe amount to book a medium-sized concert.
UPB encourages students to e-mail the organization with suggestions at upb@bsu.edu or attend its meetings on Tuesday nights in the L.A. Pittenger Student Center.
Myers said he would continue to bring acts that have proven success and can retain customers.-áHe said he routinely contacts UPB for student input.
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