With ten performances under their belt, officials at Memorial Hall are taking a look at the progress of the Carolina Performing Arts Series on campus.
Receipts are coming in for the hall's opening weekend in September - which cost about $500,000 and ran a budgeted deficit of about $200,000 - and officials say the costs are worth the benefits.
Steve Allred, executive associate provost, said the opening weekend was a success when taken in context of the long-term benefits gained by the gala.
He said last week that 16 people asked to purchase chair plaques after the event - at a cost of $5,000 a piece - raising $80,000.
Allred also said the show was well suited to the overarching goal of enhancing arts programs at UNC. He pointed to the recent matching grant from the William R. Kenan Jr. charitable trust, which eventually could raise $10 million for the arts, as an indicator of the University's commitment to the arts.
Still, all is not perfect.
As overall ticket sales continue to exceed expectations, officials say, student tickets are moving at a less than brisk pace. The only show to sell all 400 of the allotted student seats was DJ Spooky on Sept. 23, which sold 680 tickets at a cost of $10.
Emil Kang, executive director for the arts, said last week that the cap on student tickets was waived for the Spooky performance to ensure that all the students who wanted to attend the show could. He also said the student voucher system has been done away with, so now when students go to the box office, they get an actual ticket.
Officials are considering ways to improve student attendance at the hall, Kang said.
