Pass: Country concert scheduled for February

It’s beneficial for students and efforts to boost university engagement when there’s a concert booked at the Convocation Center.

Earlier this week, singer-songwriter Brad Paisley announced a performance to be held in February at the Convo. Regardless of the genre — country, hip-hop or polka — I’m pleased to see more musical events getting booked at NIU because it offers students an incentive to remain on campus, rather than having them of return home for the weekends.

NIU needs more musical events hosted at the Convo if it wants to keep students on campus.

Hopefully this one performance will start a chain reaction of more musical artists being booked at the Convo. While there’s an absence of musical events at the center — which regularly hosts wrestling meets and basketball and volleyball games — I’m hopeful there will be more variety so it meets its full potential.

Fail: Tickets for shows at Convo too expensive

Tickets for Convocation Center concerts are outrageously expensive for students.

While it’s great the Convo is booking concerts for the spring semester, tickets for Brad Paisley’s concert start at $39.75 — an expensive price for full-time students with tight budgets.

Other entertainment venues at NIU provide students discounts, such as Athletics, which sells football tickets for a student’s guest for $14.

Every venue has its own costs to look after — artist fees, advertising and salaries — but the Convo needs to compromise.

The venue needs to provide discounts for students, especially when there’s alternative musical venues in DeKalb with cheaper admittance fees.

If limited amounts of discounted tickets are offered then students will jump on the chance to see popular performers, creating more sold-out shows.