The house lights go down as the stage lights come up, and the hundreds of people crowding the room begin to cheer.
Screams of obsession and excitement fill the air as a figure slowly makes their way to stage.
The band, still in the shadows, breaks the cheers with the first chords, and the next few hours drift away as the music takes over the room and everyone in it.
In order for these few worry-free hours of nothing but music and excitement to happen, lots of planning and communication must first take place.
Robert Myers, director of John R. Emens Auditorium, is in charge of finding and booking entertainers to come to campus, and that decision in shaped largely on what students want to see.
“Students often ask for well-known concert artists. They look at other campuses and they say that it’d be nice if we could have a big-named concert,” Myers said. “We try to meet those expectations.”
Trying to find an artist can be tricky to do. Myers said not every artist is always available, so they have to look at who’s touring and connect with the artist’s agents.
Since artists don’t work directly with venues, they have agents who contact and book their shows. Myers works with those agencies to bring big names to campus.
“Events can occur in three ways,” Myers said. “The university can sign a contract to bring a speaker or artist here. Another entity can contract with an artist and rent facilities, and there can be some situations where
we might share in that
and partner to make things happen.”
The price is different for each artist too. For artists like Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, who performed at Emens on Feb. 3, the university could pay anywhere from $75,000 to $100,000 to have them perform on campus.
In the case of John Mellencamp, an outside promoter asked to use the facility.
“So this spring, April 12, John Mellencamp is coming, and the university is not paying for that. We’re actually getting paid [so they can] use the auditorium,” Myers said.
For the shows the university must pay for itself, the auditorium has a budget.
“Tuition dollars are not used,” Myers said. “Some comes from the auditorium budget, some of it is designated student fee dollars, incomes of dollars that are used for athletics and the Student Center programming dollars that are in the university budget.”
Myers said the auditorium spends about $300,000 a year in contracts for different shows.
Even though it may cost thousands of dollars to have artists like Macklemore come to campus, Myers understands the importance of having these people perform here.
“My goals as a presenter and a facility person is to present many different kinds of music and live arts experiences, things that people can’t otherwise have an opportunity to experience,” he said.
Students also appreciate and find the importance in seeing these bands when they visit campus.
Nick Mohler, a computer technology major, said it’s good for students to go to performances on campus because it’s a chance to see big artists at a cheaper, smaller venue.
“I want to go to any event that I can that’s affordable,” Mohler said. “[Emens is] big, but it’s nowhere near a stadium level that some of these performers would perform at, so it’s good and more of a personal experience being that close to a performer.”
The experience is the most important part of planning these performances.
“There’s something about live experience that’s so much different from watching television. There’s a spontaneity,” Myers said. “When you attend a concert event, there will never ever be another moment ... exactly like the one you are at right now.”
