MSU’s Breslin Student Events Center is most commonly known by students as the Izzone, in reference to the beloved basketball coach Tom Izzo, but it is also home to other events like the spring concert put on every year.
The event is put on by ASMSU, Impact 89FM, RHA and UAB, all organizations at MSU. They have around a $100,000 budget for the concert. This is something that these organizations have taken over from MSU running the events in the past 10 years.
The concert was held March 28 at the Breslin Center with the headliner Waka Flocka Flame and the opener Between Friends. The choice of artist comes from many factors, budget being a big one as well as what they think the people attending will enjoy the most.
“We pick our artists based on feedback from our internal organizations,” said Andrew Miller-Thomas, leader of the concert committee, and music coordinator for UAB. “Every year it came back that people wanted hip hop and indie.”
This is Miller-Thomas’ third year on the committee for the spring concert. It is a long process that starts in September. They figure out the costs and logistics by October and start sending out offers to artists in November. They then start signing contacts, create marketing materials, and host the concert by March.
The four organizations that put on the event put aside a budget for the event yearly. The tickets for the concert are $10 for students and $35 for the public. 2,500 tickets were available, and about 200 of those were sold to the public, the rest were student sold tickets.
Only about half the arena is being used for the event. The revenue from the concert is spread in multiple different ways.
“I believe it goes to paying the artists and then Breslin, security, people we have to pay, and then there’s merchandise we get for promotional things for students,” said senior Station Manager for Impact, Delaney Rogers. “Then the money is allocated for the budget next year so we are able to continue to do these sorts of things.
At the end of the day, this is an event put on by MSU organizations for anyone who wants to see live music.
“It’s our jobs, it’s one of our bigger events we put on every year, being a pretty major university for the area, we honestly don’t have too much of a live concert scene compared to other universities, so this is our one opportunity we have to be like other Big 10 universities,” said Miller-Thomas.
Students are excited to see what is to come of the concert, as it is something that is highly anticipated every year by people in the community.
“I’m most excited to see Waka Flocka Flame in the flesh,” environmental engineering senior Bella Marra said. “I’ve never been to a spring concert before even though I have always wanted to, so I am excited to see what it’s like.”
The planning for next year will start sometime at the end of this semester or during the summer, according to Sophie Scureman-Stoops, Impact 89FM marketing director.
The concert this year ran smoothly and not much will change logistics wise, however the new staffing team is excited to put new input into who headlines said Scuerman-Stoops. A lot of the planning has to be under wraps, but we can anticipate a similar concert to be held next year at Breslin.