With its annual $94,000 budget, Ohio University’s Campus Involvement Center booked more entertainment acts, served more people and lost less money than last year.
However, that’s without the Convo Comedy Night, which was funded separately from the center’s annual budget.
“My biggest concern is to make sure students are aware that (The Convo Comedy Night) was a one-time thing,” said Andrew Holzaepfel, associate director of the Campus Involvement Center. “They had this General Fee surplus, but that money doesn’t exist in the budget for next year. The loss for that show alone was greater than my yearly budget for the Performing Arts Series.”
Zach George, president of Student Senate, was allocated $150,000 of leftover General Fee money for the show; additional revenue from ticket sales was expected to cover operating costs. With ticket sales and the $42,000 saved after Whitney Cummings canceled, only $103,000 of that General Fee money was used. The remainder went back into the General Fee.
George said he is happy with the way this year turned out in terms of entertainment money, but it’s up to the next round of students to vote on who they would rather see.
“Sometimes you do take a hit on those things,” George said. “One of the things I’ve been pushing for is to host a big event like Comedy Night once every four years. Yes, we take a loss on those things, but while you’re here as a student, you’ll be able to experience something big.”
Holzaepfel explained that there are three ways to run programming at a university: The first is to give the show away for free — such as a larger school like Ohio State University might do — and take the full loss of contract fees and other setup costs.
The second way is similar to The Convo Comedy Night, in which students were charged a smaller fee to pay off roughly one third of expenses and leave the university to pay the remaining $103,000.
The third method is the way Holzaepfel has been running the university’s programming, charging students a larger ticket fee in order to pay off expenses for the show. However, it’s all a balancing game, he said: Some acts lose money, others only break even and still some shows make a profit.
“Our challenge is that our mission is to do all of it,” Holzaepfel said. “Whereas I know a classical concert is going to lose more money than Seth Meyers, I still do it for the School of Music, the College of Fine Arts and for the greater university community.”
The Campus Involvement Center is also allocated $267,000 per year to fund smaller shows in addition to the $94,000 for the Performing Arts Series.
Holzaepfel said he also puts a large emphasis on advertisement. Nine years ago, the Campus Involvement Center bought a large in-house poster printer, but this is the first year the center has used it to print the large banners that hang across the Baker University Center escalators.
“I’m a firm believer in advertising,” Holzaepfel said. “I get disappointed when I see a student group that will spend $20,000 on an event and they will spend $100 advertising it. If people aren’t coming to a $20,000 event, it wasn’t worth spending the money.”
This year the center booked 23 events in which 29,090 tickets were sold, surpassing last year’s 19 events and 26,470 tickets.
Student Senate sent out a survey at the beginning of the year asking students if they would prefer a high-profile The Convo show or multiple shows at Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium — students chose the latter.
Because of the results of the survey, the $150,000 budget — the same amount set aside for Wiz Khalifa and Sean Kingston last year — went to booking six acts in MemAud: Easton Corbin with Dustin Lynch, Colbie Caillat, Ace Hood, Timeflies with Bailee Moore, Phillip Phillips and Rodney Atkins with Josh Thompson.
The combined contract fees for those artists came out to $135,000 before security and stage setup costs. Holzaepfel said he projects these six acts will cost $10,000 out of the center’s $94,000 yearly budget, whereas the Wiz Khalifa show was double that cost.
“For these five acts, we’ve served more students and lost less university resources than we did compared to the one Wiz Khalifa show,” Holzaepfel said. “I’m not advocating (one way or another) for more concerts in MemAud. … There are a lot of students who say just having the Wiz concert was better for them than the other acts we’ve brought this spring.”
wh092010@ohiou.edu
