Tickets for Florida A&M University’s Homecoming Concert will be available Monday at the student union building in the old recreation center box office.
The price will be $25.00 for floor seats and $20.00 for general seating, with a $1-2 convenience fee.
Students who are currently enrolled, with a new Rattlercard can purchase one ticket with cash only.
Tickets for the general public will be available for $35-$37 at the Leon County Civic Center.
The event’s organizers said they will be selling tickets on a “first come first serve basis.”
The theme for this year’s homecoming concert is “the Set” and the following artists are scheduled to appear: ‘Lil Wayne,’ T-Pain, Plies, ‘Lil Boosie,’ Webbie and Musiq Soulchild.
Tyler Cheatham, 21, a senior business student from West Palm Beach is this year’s homecoming concert chair.
Cheatham said the committee really wanted to involve students in the process of picking potential artists.
“Since technically it’s the students’ money that’s paying for it, its their concert,” Cheatham said. “We did online polls and basically picked a top ten, then the final lup was based on price and availability.”
Cheatham explained how they came up with this year’s theme.
“The set is something that people can identify with from years past and present and the stage will actually be set up like and resemble ‘the Set,'” Cheatham said. “We chose to move away from the ‘Big Show’ because it had no direct links to FAMU and we really want to make it a FAMU event and give FAMU as much credit for it as possible.”
In addition to securing a venue and promoter and coming up with a catchy theme, Cheatham said he and other committee members have been working since the spring semester to do marketing and publicity work.
“We did a television commercial that we filmed on ‘the Set’ and it will be coming out in about a week on MTV, BET, ESPN and FAMU TV-20,” Cheatham said. “As of now we also have a mix CD done by DJ Bam and Byron J from [WANM] 90.5 [FM] but we’re just waiting on the drops from the artists.”
He also said that now all that’s left is the marketing and promotion for the event and flyers will be hitting the streets soon.
Publicity for the event has already generated a buzz on campus. But for students like Jose Sanabria, 19, a sophomore criminal justice student from the Dominican Republic, it will never be enough to get him to this year’s concert. He said he prefers northern rap artists rather than the predominately southern styled line-up planned.
“I don’t plan on going [and] I’ll probably buy a ticket and sell mine to someone else,” Sanabria said. “I plan to stay home and listen to some good music.”
Sheena Williams, 21, a senior psychology student from Gordon, Ala. said she has never been to a homecoming concert, but she might come this year.
“I’m not a big fan of crowds, I guess I just have a fear of things getting out of hand and people getting trampled,” Williams said. “I might actually end up coming this year [because] it looks like they’ve really invited some hot commodities and people who are at the top of their game.”
She added she’s looking forward to seeing Musiq Soulchild the most.
Despite the general sentiment from some students about this year’s concert, Cheatham remains optimistic with the projected ticket sales.
“It sold out last year so I know we’re going to sell two times better definitely. “There will be a lot of surprises, it’s going to be like something you’ve never seen before… not your typical concert.”
Cheatham ended saying they are also going to be having auditions for the opening acts on Friday, October 19 in Lee Hall. Anyone interested in auditioning must submit demos to SGA by October 5.
For more information contact Tyler Cheatham at (786) 229-8451/TJcheat@gmail.com or Karla Black at Karla.black@hotmail.com.
Demos can submitted to DJ Champ at WANM 90.5 FM.