The Brown Concert Agency will sell an additional 1,500 tickets for each Spring Weekend concert if weather permits, the group announced today. Good weather will also allow the Friday event featuring Lupe Fiasco to be held on the Main Green. The tickets will go on sale on April 9 for seniors and April 10 for all other students.
"After demand was so high this year, there couldn't be any other option for us - we had to sell more tickets," said Cash McCracken '08, the BCA's administrative chair, who added that he's been working to get Friday's concert outside all year.
"There's such better sound and experience being outside," McCracken said, adding that, if it rains, the concerts will be held in Meehan Auditorium, which seats 3,500 students. Students who can't be seated in Meehan will be offered full refunds.
In addition to allowing Friday's concert to be outside, administrators increased the designated capacity of the Main Green from 4,500 to 5,000 people, McCracken said. Moreover, the BCA will not sell tickets to the general public, freeing up more tickets for students.
Students must pay in cash and will only be able to purchase one $20 package, which will include a ticket for both shows, though McCracken said students can buy one extra package with another student's ID. In the first round of sales, students were allowed to buy up to eight tickets, or four packages. BCA has not set a limit on the number of tickets students could buy in the past, McCracken said.
"Going off of feedback from past years, we started off with four packs per person, but once we saw the unbelievable demand, we cut that off," McCracken said, estimating that only about 50 people were able to buy eight tickets.
The extra ticket sales will be a relief for many students, after this year's tickets sold in record-breaking time.
"I'm happy all my friends can come now - like none of my friends have tickets," said Sarah Kate Wagner '08. "I love Spring Weekend. I'm so excited they will both be outside. That's amazing."
Many students without tickets, like Kate Love '08 and Miriam Altman '08, said they're thrilled at the chance to get tickets - and willing to wait in long lines for them.
Love said she'd be upset if she didn't get tickets for the outdoors concerts. "So yeah, I'll wait on a long line."
McCracken said students should prepare for those.
"Long lines is the understatement of (the) century," McCracken said. "It's going to be crazy."
McCracken added that he still hopes that, since many students already have tickets, there will be less demand than when tickets first went on sale. "But we are still banking on the lines going outside the P.O. I'd advise people to go early."
McCracken attributed the sales to the bands. "If you look around and see the rest of the Ivy Leagues (schools), they have really mediocre spring weekend acts," he said, adding that the fast sales last year also motivated people to get their tickets early this year.
Though the BCA would ideally have several points of sale to cut down on lines, it can only sell tickets in the glass booth in Lower Faunce House because of security issues.
Holding the show outside in the evening will require additional lighting on and around the stage, McCracken said. That lighting will cost more than lighting for a show during the day, but the cost will be covered by the extra tickets sold, he added.
Another change announced Wednesday is that the winner of a Battle of the Bands contest hosted by Brown Student Radio and Coalition of Bands at Brown will play in Saturday's show.
"We are always looking for ways to incorporate students more into Spring Weekend," McCracken said. In past years, students have performed a dance with the power-pop band OK Go and played horns with alt-country band Wilco. The Battle of the Bands will take place on April 10 in Sayles Hall.
