Concerts not about to get cheap

By CHRIS WITKOWSKY
Collegian Staff Writer

Ticket prices may seem steep at The Bryce Jordan Center and other local venues, but the high fares reflect prices set around the country.

If you tried to buy a ticket for Alanis Morissette and found you couldn't afford it, you're not alone. The $28.50 to $35 price range for Morissette tickets is the same at other venues across the United States.

A Morissette show at the Fabulous Fox Arena in Atlanta, Ga., costs $31 and the Gund Arena Theater in Cleveland charges from $27.50 to $35. These are the shows sold through Ticketmaster.

The ticket prices for big-name acts like Morissette are similar because an agent working directly with the performer finds out what that performer needs for each particular tour and bases the ticket price on those needs. A promoter then negotiates the price with each arena.

So there is some room for leeway, but because an agent represents each tour performer to every arena, prices don't vary much.

The Center works with the promoter Electric Factory Concerts. ELC's asking price -- $39 for floor seats -- was pretty close to the final ticket prices for the Morissette tour.

Bernie Punt, director of public relations for the Center, said the seemingly expensive ticket prices don't reflect the center trying to make profit.

Considering only ticket sales, "A building our size usually loses money," Punt said. "Most buildings this size break even."

The center is profitable, though, because of advertising revenue. Companies buy signs to hang inside the arena.

It's a completely self-sufficient operation -- Penn State gives no subsidies to help the center lower ticket prices. But the center's staff fights every day to make tickets affordable, Punt said.

"We always battle with promoters to make it affordable for the students, but sometimes we can't negotiate with the promoters. They set the price and that's the bottom line," he said.

HUB Late Night, on the other hand, is funded through the Student Activity Fee and admission is free.

But shows funded by the Fee aren't actually free. Each full-time Penn State student pays $36 dollars per semester to provide funding for things like HUB Late Night and the Distinguished Speaker Series.

"Some students take advantage of the shows, some come to every show we have," said John Harlow, director of HUB Late Night.

"The riots last summer indicate that we need to be there for the students, to give them another option other than drinking all weekend."

The University Park Allocation Committee decides where fee money goes. The fee budget for 1997 to 1998 was over $1,800,000, with 63 percent of the money going toward HUB/Robeson renovation and construction, and 37 percent going to student activities.

The University Concert Committee is also a self-sufficient organization that tries to bring smaller shows to Eisenhower and Rec Hall. Being self-sufficient, the UCC is not funded by the Student Activity Fee, so the shows it provides have to be cheaper than Center shows.

"We have a niche, a 5,000-seat venue," said Kathleen Kent (senior-integrative arts), UCC chairperson. "We take surveys of students and check record sales and airplay of certain CDs. Our policy board is made up of leaders of different student organizations, and that's how we decide who to fund."

In 1972, the university allotted the UCC $25,000 to use for whatever UCC deemed appropriate. The UCC has been dipping into the money ever since, attempting to break even each year.