Despite already having an artist lined up, the University Activities Organization has cancelled its traditional homecoming concert.

The organization has known since the beginning of the school year and published a letter explaining the decision on its website on Sept. 15.

The decision is due to the large amount of other concerts in the Stroh Center, said Bri Cowart, UAO president.

“There are a lot of opportunities for students to attend concerts already on campus; UAO is here to provide a variety of things,” Cowart said. “We are concerned that if we provide another concert for [students] it wouldn’t fare very well.”

One concert that was supposed to come to the Stroh was an artist in the hip-hop genre, the same genre UAO was considering for the homecoming concert. UAO can’t release the name of the artist it was considering, due to lack of a contract with the artist.

“There is oversaturation of the market for concerts in the same genre,” said Mike Freyaldenhoven, UAO staff adviser and assistant dean of students in the office of campus activities.

The Stroh Center had planned to host an artist in the hip-hop genre within two weeks of homecoming. That concert has since been postponed, but Cowart said it affected UAO’s decision to cancel the concert.

“The date was held for [UAO],” said Jim Elsasser, associate athletic director for internal affairs in intercollegiate athletics. “It’s unfortunate that there’s not a concert but we will have other events.”

A few weeks after UAO made the decision to cancel the homecoming concert, the concert scheduled within two weeks of homecoming was postponed.

“At that point it was already too late in the game, if we tried to get someone on that short of notice the price would have been raised,” Cowart said.

In place of the concert, UAO is focusing its time, energy and money on other activities for students.

“I think the students are disappointed,” Freyaldenhoven said. “I think it provides us with a new opportunity to do something different … I’m excited about the new opportunities, but I was excited about the concert as well.”

Sophomore Victoria Littleton went to the homecoming concert in 2010 and is disappointed that there won’t be a concert this year.

“I feel like it’s messing up tradition,” Littleton said. “I would have definitely attended because it’s part of the whole weekend … I feel like it’s a good way to end the weekend off.”

UAO is working on making programs such as “LOL with UAO” and “Sibs N Kids” even bigger, Cowart said. “LOL with UAO” is an annual spring comedy festival UAO began last year and “Sibs N Kids” weekend is hosted annually and is a weekend designed for siblings, children and friends of University students and staff.

“This really gives us the opportunity to start a new tradition with UAO,” Cowart said. “The homecoming concert has been something UAO has been known for and we want to show students we provide a lot of different things.”

UAO is also looking to collaborate with other campus organizations, they are beginning to work with the Gospel Choir and H2O on events.

“We’re in the process of brainstorming what we can bring to students,” Cowart said. “We really want to stress that we want to collaborate with other organizations on campus.”

Cowart said other concerts aren’t out of the question in the future.

“It was just a decision that was for this year,” Cowart said. “We want to focus on providing students with the best programming possible.”

Freyaldenhoven thinks the focus of UAO will always be how to spend the student’s money best.

“We’ve not given up on the concert situation [for the future],” Freyaldenhoven said.