Thousands of UNC students attended the Carolina Union Activities Board Jubilee concert Saturday, the first since Johnny Cash and the Temptations played in 1971. Within the course of four days 1,800 student tickets were sold for $5 each and 650 more were highly coveted by students who participated in CUAB competitions to win the additional tickets.
For all of the event’s success, opener Well$ received only $750 plus the cost of a clean dressing room, a clean, bare stage and technical performance requirements for his performance, according to the official contract released to the Daily Tar Heel on Monday.
Further, no additional hospitality accommodations such as specific foods were included in the contract. All CUAB visiting performers have the opportunity to request certain foods and dinner is provided at a time agreed upon by both the artist and CUAB, which may be provided in the form of a meal-buyout if preferred by the artist.
Well$ has 2,440 likes on Facebook, 2,088 followers on Twitter and 2,013 followers on Soundcloud.
According to an article published by the Daily Tar Heel in 2014, the CUAB annual budget is approximately $375,000. The budget for the Jubilee concert ranged from $40,000 to $50,000, according to CUAB President Gabe Chess.
In comparison, Rae Sremmurd earned $30,000 for their performance plus the cost of hotel accommodations, ground transportation and technical performance requirements. Their requests included specific accommodations for their dressing room at the venue, from a couch to a clothing iron to a CD player.
The artists also made specific requests for their hospitality accommodations: the dressing room contained 24 assorted orange, pineapple and cranberry juices, 24 chicken wings with ranch dressing, eight new white hand towels, Carmex lip balm, brownies and an assorted fruit platter for five people, among other items.
Although initially denied, Rae Sremmurd was eventually provided spicy crunch Doritos Tacos by both the CUAB and helpful students after public outcry.
In October, the Gloriana and Earl Sweatshirt Homecoming concerts cost CUAB $50,000, including the same technical costs. In 2013, CUAB paid $90,000 for Homecoming headliners Wale and Ace Hood.
“CUAB is entirely funded by student fees, so there’s an activity fee for CUAB that funds everything we do,” Chess said.
“Its a limiting factor — it seems like to other student organizations we have an abundance of money, and we take the amount of money we have very seriously. It is a lot of money — we take the student fees very, very seriously — but especially if you start looking at planning large scale concerts and the fact that we want to and need to do so many different kinds of events throughout the year, so we don’t have a ton of money for concerts.”
arts@dailytarheel.com
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