Ludacris: $20,000 Mistake or $20,000 for a Historical First?
Hi, all,
Last week the Daily covered that MSA will be $20,000 in the red for the recent Ludacris concert. To explain how this worked, MSA, along with Hillel, provided money for Big Ticket Productions (under University Activities Center, or UAC) to plan and bring about the concert. The concert did not sell as many tickets as anticipated, so there was a $45,000 loss. Rightly so, MSA will spare Hillel and absorb $20,000 of the losses. UAC will absorb the remaining $25,000.
I believe President Jesse Levine was much too charitable by characterizing the concert as an "unqualified success" because MSA could have prevented the $20,000 loss (perhaps he meant "underqualified success"!). An amount of $20,000 could have been used for a variety of different student organizations, events or speakers.
Similarly, I find it lamentable that others justified spending money on the concert because the concert supposedly brought together people from different backgrounds and Ludacris works on social justice issues. If efforts were made to have Ludacris give a speech about diversity, they were unsuccessful. Furthermore, having a diverse audience at an event is hardly noteable unless there is conversation or some type of collective interaction. Ludacris did little to bring about dialog or connect to U of M students besides offering a crude, sexist comment ("U of M girls give me U of M head") which I think demeans the whole "higher purpose" of the concert altogether.
However, I don't believe that the concert was an absolutely terrible thing. MSA DID bring the first hip-hop act to Hill Auditorium, and many, many MSA reps have been elected by promoting the idea of bringing a big-name artist to Ann Arbor. So, was the $20,000 (and the $25,000 from other student fees outside of MSA) worth it?
Rumor has it that it was discovered that the ticket prices were listed incorrectly on off-campus advertisements, and one of the advisors for Big Ticket Productions did not feel it was professional to re-submit the advertisements, so no off-campus advertisements were ran. Clearly, this passive move could have been the culprit to the loss, so MSA members involved with the concert should have a) been more involved to know about the advertisement flub-up, or b) if they knew about the mistake, they should have insisted that the advertisements were a necessary component of the concert promotions.
I believe on-campus advertising worked well and that nearly every student who wanted to go to the concert knew about it. If we didn't get enough students at the concert, it was because that date didn't work for Ludacris fans or some of us (like me) don't really care for rap and wouldn't have gone no matter how much advertising there was. Therefore, the problem was probably off-campus, general public advertising.
Anyway, thoughts?
Rese
Last week the Daily covered that MSA will be $20,000 in the red for the recent Ludacris concert. To explain how this worked, MSA, along with Hillel, provided money for Big Ticket Productions (under University Activities Center, or UAC) to plan and bring about the concert. The concert did not sell as many tickets as anticipated, so there was a $45,000 loss. Rightly so, MSA will spare Hillel and absorb $20,000 of the losses. UAC will absorb the remaining $25,000.
I believe President Jesse Levine was much too charitable by characterizing the concert as an "unqualified success" because MSA could have prevented the $20,000 loss (perhaps he meant "underqualified success"!). An amount of $20,000 could have been used for a variety of different student organizations, events or speakers.
Similarly, I find it lamentable that others justified spending money on the concert because the concert supposedly brought together people from different backgrounds and Ludacris works on social justice issues. If efforts were made to have Ludacris give a speech about diversity, they were unsuccessful. Furthermore, having a diverse audience at an event is hardly noteable unless there is conversation or some type of collective interaction. Ludacris did little to bring about dialog or connect to U of M students besides offering a crude, sexist comment ("U of M girls give me U of M head") which I think demeans the whole "higher purpose" of the concert altogether.
However, I don't believe that the concert was an absolutely terrible thing. MSA DID bring the first hip-hop act to Hill Auditorium, and many, many MSA reps have been elected by promoting the idea of bringing a big-name artist to Ann Arbor. So, was the $20,000 (and the $25,000 from other student fees outside of MSA) worth it?
Rumor has it that it was discovered that the ticket prices were listed incorrectly on off-campus advertisements, and one of the advisors for Big Ticket Productions did not feel it was professional to re-submit the advertisements, so no off-campus advertisements were ran. Clearly, this passive move could have been the culprit to the loss, so MSA members involved with the concert should have a) been more involved to know about the advertisement flub-up, or b) if they knew about the mistake, they should have insisted that the advertisements were a necessary component of the concert promotions.
I believe on-campus advertising worked well and that nearly every student who wanted to go to the concert knew about it. If we didn't get enough students at the concert, it was because that date didn't work for Ludacris fans or some of us (like me) don't really care for rap and wouldn't have gone no matter how much advertising there was. Therefore, the problem was probably off-campus, general public advertising.
Anyway, thoughts?
Rese
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Viewpoint: The Ludacris “debacle:” politics as usual
http://www.michigandaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/11/28/438a9dcba8301?in_archive=1
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From the Daily: A ludicrous failure: MSA could have bought a yacht with $115,000
http://www.michigandaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/11/22/4382bcbf666b6?in_archive=1
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Letters to the Editor
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MSA loses on rap show: Student government loses more than $20,000 due to poor ticket sales, unexpectedly high cost
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