UAB explains plans for future concert planning after Spring Musefest cancelled

University Activities Board (UAB) is considering working with a promoter for next year’s spring concert after low ticket sales for this year’s event featuring the All American Rejects forced them to rethink their strategy, according to UAB President Kit Dysart.

UAB is the “premier programming board” at Wright State and is funded by Student Organization Budget Committee (SOBC) to provide events and activities for students, according to UAB. One of these events is an annual spring concert.

The 2013 “Spring Musefest” was the second straight concert from UAB cancelled, and the third in the past four years. Dysart said that working with a professional concert promoter would increase the likelihood of the concert’s successful presentation.

“Going with a promoter, rather than an individual programmer, will make [the concert] a higher possibility.” Dysart said. “We would just work with the promoter, buy out a portion of the tickets and give them to the students, aiming for them to be free.”

UAB Major Events Coordinator Alicia Speaks said that the cancellation of the concert scheduled for March 21 (due to the illness of a performer) was probably a financial savior for the organization because ticket sales were low.

“It wasn’t selling as well as we thought it would,” Speaks said. “We did not have enough to cover it.”

“We would have been in debt,” Dysart agreed.

UAB received $114,209 from SOBC for the 2012-2013 year, consuming nearly a sixth of SOBC’s total funding and serving as the second largest budget of any student organization, according to SOBC.

Student Government Chief of Staff Spencer Brannon said the SOBC committee should not automatically assume that UAB needs the large portion of funding that they regularly receive.

“Some years, UAB doesn’t work up to snuff,” Brannon said. “Some years it doesn’t contribute to campus as some orgs might with the money.”

Brannon said the concert cancelation was “ due to no fault of UAB’s,” but that the funding specifically allocated for the concert could be better spent elsewhere if UAB could not secure performers.

“If [UAB] is not able to secure acts, then that money may be better used elsewhere on campus in student orgs that don’t rely on other people fulfilling their obligations in order to better the campus,” Brannon said.

The UAB concert that did survive in the past four years took place in 2011, featuring the artist KE$HA. The concert sold out, and was so successful that UAB still has revenue from it, according to Dysart.

Dysart said that some of the funding from this year’s cancelled concert would go into the UAB “April Craze” event, specifically funding bands and music. April Craze is another example of the service that UAB brings campus, according to Dysart.

“We’re here to program for the WSU students,” Dysart said. “We have a lot of diverse and fun events that are free to the Wright State students.”

Full refunds for “Spring Musefest” are available at the Student Union and Nutter Center Box Offices.