With the Macklemore and Ryan Lewis concert on Monday, University Union went through months of preparation and planning to bring the hip-hop duo to the Carrier Dome.

UU sent out a survey to all SU students last May to gauge which genres, headliners and supporting acts students were interested in bringing to the university for Juice Jam. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis were the most selected choices by students in the survey, which Billy Ceskavich — UU’s president — said influenced the organization’s decision to bring the act to campus.

“Overall we try really hard to bring the top artists from the survey results who are available for the dates we have open,” Ceskavich said. “For example, Macklemore was the most chosen act from the survey for this fall, and Kendrick Lamar, who headlined Juice Jam, was the second most popular choice. To say that we were able to bring both of them this semester is a really big deal for us.”

UU’s ability to bring high-demand talent to the university is something students have responded to. Juice Jam sold out, and Chance the Rapper’s show sold out in less than an hour, making it the fastest selling Bandersnatch show.

Even before releasing the survey, UU saw the release of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ album “The Heist” and knew they wanted to bring them to SU, said Kelly Benini, UU’s concert director.

UU originally hoped to bring Macklemore to SU last semester, but Benini said conflicts with Macklemore’s schedule prevented any final negotiations going through in the spring. She added she was able to nail down a definitive date for Macklemore and Ryan Lewis to bring their world tour to the Dome this semester.

“When we were given the supplemental funding, we were told that we had to use it to increase programming, so one of the ways to do that was to look into routed tours,” Benini said. “Macklemore was putting together his fall World Tour, so I said to (his agent), ‘Hey, is there any opportunity for us to put in an offer for a spot on the tour?’”

After Macklemore’s agent gave Benini a range of dates for when the tour would be in the Northeast, she said UU worked to reserve the Dome for the concert. Once Benini and her team were able to work around the basketball season’s schedule, the two parties reached a final negotiation for the event, she said.

This is the first time the university will host an event that is a routed stop in an artist’s official tour schedule, and will be funded through the $1 million supplemental funding UU received from the Student Association in 2011.

UU used part of its $1 million supplemental funding in the winter of 2012 for its first-ever “Rock the Dome” show, said Ceskavich. The show, which featured hip-hop heavyweights Ludacris and Rick Ross, sold 7,000 tickets.

“The seed funding was provided for us as part of our mission as the programming board to bring large scale acts to campus,” Ceskavich said. “Rock The Dome was one of our first attempts at doing that, and we thought about resurrecting it as a recurring thing, but we decided not to for multiple reasons.”

Ceskavich added that UU felt they could bring more diverse acts to the university with the supplemental money, as opposed to hosting an annual hip-hop concert like Rock The Dome. The event also fell at the beginning of the spring semester, which made the planning process more complicated for UU.  He said the funding would be more appropriate for more spontaneous shows that work for UU.

“There was so much buzz on campus for Macklemore, so we were saying to ourselves, ‘OK, we’ve got to book this guy,’” Ceskavich said. “We’re really excited for the show and we think it’s going to be one of the most high-production concerts that has come to the university in a long time.”

Tickets for Monday night’s Dome Show are still on sale at the Schine Box Office and cost $15.

Published on November 10, 2013 at 11:52 pm

Contact Tom: tsharkey@syr.edu