CUAB releases Jubilee date

To the readers of this article hoping to find out the performer, budget or location for the upcoming spring Jubilee concert: sorry to disappoint. But there’s still hope — and a newly released date: April 16.

According to Boateng Kubi, vice president of outreach for the Carolina Union Activities Board, the concert planning is almost done. 

“We have an artist picked out. We also have a location picked out. Our artist has accepted our offer and now we’re working through the final details before it’ll be announced. There are a few logistical things we have to go through both with the venue and the artist,” said Kubi.

This year’s Jubilee carries a lot of expectations. 

The traditional Homecoming concert in the fall was canceled in order for CUAB to focus on building Jubilee. Last year’s Jubilee was far more successful than the Homecoming concert, with Rae Sremmurd and opener Well$ selling out 1,800 tickets at Hooker Fields. 

But according to first-year Savannah Patterson, CUAB needs to go ahead and announce the artist so students can prepare for the event.

“I feel like if people want to make plans, if it’s in April, they should probably announce it now so that people could actually plan around it because that sounds really interesting," she said. "I think that it would be cool if I actually knew who was performing."

Kubi gave hints as to a link between the location and act which might help students sleuth out the event details.

“The location is new, it’s a place that we haven’t had a concert before. And so that’s a part of the concert," he said. 

"The artist is also someone that’s tied in with the location, so it’s sort of a package type of thing. We can’t really release one without releasing the other, so now we’re just trying to get the concert details and waiting on several logistics from the artist, from people that we’re working with on the location and then just the programming board weighing different things about Jubilee itself,” Kubi said.

This might bode well for Patterson, who’s hoping for a local artist to play at the venue.

“I’ve gone to Cat’s Cradle before and I went to the back room and there was an artist from Durham and an artist from Greensboro. So if they used local artists, I think that’d be really cool,” said Patterson.

First-year Ryan Lawton said he hopes for a local artist as well — just maybe one that has achieved more mainstream success.

“I think it’s pretty shady. My money goes to CUAB, so it should be transparent,” said Lawton. “I am a paying student, I pay tuition and CUAB fees and I want J. Cole here.”

@rachelisbeyonce

arts@dailytarheel.com