“Tired. All the work we put in was very rewarding, but overall I would say tired,” is how Student Committee on Popular Entertainment’s (SCOPE) executive director Gloria Tawalujan and publicity director Joshua McInerney said they felt, following the concert that SCOPE hosted on Nov. 10 at the Whittemore Center.
The process of transforming the Whittemore Center into a SCOPE concert venue was an all-day and all-night process, usually beginning the night before when the ice was covered to give SCOPE as much time as possible on Friday.
“We started at 7:00 a.m. on Friday, and by that point the riggers have already begun to set up the lights, and the rest of the day is dedicated to building the stage, placing the artist’s equipment on the stage, and prepping dressing rooms,” said Tawalujan. “As soon as the show ends, we have to disassemble everything and when we [leave] at around 4:00 a.m., it’s like we were never there at all.”
The concert, which featured country artists Alana Springsteen, Tyler Rich and Brett Young, was a success according to SCOPE, even if the concert did not sell out.
“Obviously we would love to sell out every show that we put on, but it is not something that we let deter us from putting on a good show,” said Tawalujan.
Country music has consistently been SCOPE’s second most requested genre for years, and while the number of student tickets sold this year was slightly lower than the last two shows SCOPE has put on, Tawalujan said that they saw an uptick in public ticket sales.
SCOPE representatives also said even though they are not that worried about putting on a sold-out show, they are aware of the cost of tickets this year, which has seen a steady increase year after year since bringing live shows back to campus.
“Ticket prices are always one of our top priorities when it comes to planning a show. The market and demand for live entertainment has exploded since COVID, which unfortunately means higher production costs and more money to nail down an artist, which in turn directly affects our ticket prices,” said McInerney.
Looking to the future, SCOPE started the process of booking an artist for the spring show a week before the Brett Young concert. Tawalujan said that they have already provided a list of potential performers to their agent, and once they figure out who is in their price range and the availability of the Whittemore Center, everything will fall into place in terms of planning. SCOPE would not comment on what the specific genre would be, but they do have a general idea based on the trend of previous surveys.
