Chapman Hair Band Concert
- Thread starter Weatherdemon
- Start date
I thought of this old thread while at an AC/DC show last week.
Whatever ever happened with the plan of putting on more concerts in Chapman? Def Leppard came and went and then nothing has been mentioned since about future shows.
Whatever ever happened with the plan of putting on more concerts in Chapman? Def Leppard came and went and then nothing has been mentioned since about future shows.
I would like to know as well. The Boys of Oklahoma put over $5M directly into the pockets of OSU’s NIL. Why couldn’t TU do something like that ?
Didn’t Carson put out something in X in the past couple months asking if there should be another concert at Chapman?
Well, the venue is larger. Second, the promoters and performers took financial positions less favorable than rock acts on a profit tour. Bands like Cross Canadian Ragweed don’t have the corporate entanglements you have with other touring acts. It’s also a lot easier to get a local act with a cult following to fill up a stadium than divert a nationally known touring act to a midsize town with a historic venue that is barely wide enough to accommodate modern touring stages and has construction access issues. That’s stopped a few folks from using Skelly over the years as I understand it.
So, for a band to be interested in playing at TU, first it needs to be touring pretty much independently and self financing and that universe is small. Second, the venue has to be available during a repositioning of the tour. It’s basically an extra show for them as the band moves equipment across the country from one large venue to the other. Third, the size of the venue has to net a yield that makes the stop worth it. In Tulsa, people just aren’t going to pay what most bands want to see in profit from a venue the size of Skelly. Acts that can muster that type of ticket price can play in larger venues and make much more.
There’s also the difference in how the events are structured. For legal reasons unimportant here, TU essentially rents the venue to the acts. They pay a flat fee and TU gives them a key. The acts pay for insurance, security, concessions, crowd management, etc.
OSU, again for reasons unimportant here, can structure the event to generate more income for them and their collective because they have additional resources to minimize risks. It’s essentially the same structure on paper but who takes on risk and who shares in profit can be dramatically different because their situation is different than TUs.
So it could happen again, but Motley Crue was here because it worked for them and they could make money from it, so they rented the building. We went along with it because we wanted to upgrade our student facilities to attract more students on the academic side. It isn’t the case where we went out and found an act to play our venue so we could make a profit off a cut of the ticket prices and give it to a select few athletes. Even if TU was willing to take on such risk for such a narrow goal, it really is outside what a small school should be doing in furtherance of its tax exempt education mission.
After the big weekend in Stillwater, I have wondered the same thing. I thought that concert was nothing but positive for TU, really thought they would do a country music version followup.
I suspect, but don’t know, that the return for the band was not what was expected. I’m sure they made a lot of money. But maybe not as much as they thought. And word gets around. They did lower prices substantially as I recall.
Booking an outdoor performance in a place like Tulsa with volatile weather is inherently risky. Or prohibitively hot for workers and performers. Not to mention people don’t want to pay $200 to stand in the sun and/or heat.
And TU can only make that facility available during narrow windows during the year. That probably also has an effect on why no return acts yet. Simple timing.
And then there’s the neighbors that complained. And there were many.
Now give me some reasons why we can / should book these acts and tell me how we CAN get it done and make it successful….
Instead of telling me all the reasons I can’t.
Instead of telling me all the reasons I can’t.
TU isn’t picking the acts. They rent the facility to promoters who ask. Rock, Country, Reggae, whatever.
Convince the wife to come is probably the only chance you would have of getting Garth to join her! She was a University of Georgia dropout! Convincing her is likely almost as impossible as convincing him.
Didn’t we have a DB transfer to UGA and start there a few years? If so it would be a fair compensation for her to perform at Chapman and bring her husband who should reciprocate for the two transfers they enticed from us last year. If those and other schools don’t keep TU stocked with good players where will they recruit in the future - high school players?
