| 311: Your backstage pass |
|
|
| Written by Bobby Swain | |
|
The annual St. Patrick’s Day concert this year was a tremendous success, thanks to the efforts of all who were involved. Story of the Year and Ballyhoo opened up the show for the main event: 311. SUB and the St. Pat’s board were the organizations involved in the success of the concert. A lot of time, effort and money went into the program, and it all went off without a hitch. In fact, the only real issue to be dealt with was cutting it close with sealing the contracts. The following is a behind the scenes look at everything it took to make a St. Pat’s concert happen.
As previously mentioned, 311 wasn’t actually booked until December, and their official contract didn’t go through until about two weeks before the concert. The cost of the performers was $95,000 for 311 and $17,500 for Story of the Year. Ballyhoo was included in the 311 package. Cost for renting the Multipurpose building was about $1,000, and altogether with everything else the total came out to be about $150,000. Of that total cost, $60,000 was funded by SUB and $30,000 came from the St. Pat’s board, while another $60,000 was made in ticket sales. The concert was a sold-out event, with 2,758 people in attendance. Setup for the show began at nine in the morning on Saturday, and everything from lights to sound equipment to instruments was set up in six hours. About 90 people, mostly all students, volunteered to help out for various duties. Approximately 30 security personnel, most of which were ROTC volunteers, guarded the off-limits areas. Another 30 people made up the tech crew, which set up the light and sound equipment. Finally, another 30 people served as miscellaneous helpers with odd jobs before the concert. When asked what the scariest thing was about the event, assistant concert director Matt Camden replied, “It was scary that the show went so well!” There were none of the major issues that a lot of other concerts have, such as moshing and crowd surfing. Moshing was allowed until it got dangerous, and crowd surfing was on a “three strikes” rule, in which violators who crossed the front barrier three times were escorted from the concert. None of the bands stayed in Rolla before or after the show. 311 lives in their tour bus, and Story of the Year had flown in from working in their studio to do the show, and returned afterwards. There are rumors that Missouri S&T couldn’t afford bands such as Breaking Benjamin and Sum 41 and so we had to settle for 311. These are unconfirmed rumors, and the only truth in public domain is that Sum 41’s lead singer has a back injury and cannot perform. Regardless, the crowd was quite pleased with the show they got. The bands selected were picked from a democratic process in the concert committee. They poured over a list of possibilities and narrowed it down to ten bands. From there, they weighed the pros and cons and chose the best to perform. As for bands for next year, nobody knows yet. If you would like to be a part of the process, contact This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|