University Activities Organization Traditions Co-Directors Cassie Utt and Harley Rohrbacher are celebrating a successful homecoming concert featuring 3OH!3 and Cobra Starship and planning for the upcoming comedy show.

“We spoke with about 10 bands this year,” said Rohrbacher, a junior Criminal Justice major. “There is a list online with price ranges. By that we can know who is available for our school.”

The Student Budget Committee, which gives money to all student organizations, funds UAO.

“We set aside money for big events like Family Weekend, Sibs N’Kids weekend and the homecoming concert,” said Utt, a senior Computer Science and Vocal Performance major.

The University uses two middle agents from Degy Entertainment to get in touch with the agents of bands and comedians to schedule gigs.

“Once we pick bands in our budget we present those options to our agent and he passes along our interest to the bands’ agents and they will say yes or no,” Rohrbacher said.

The budget varies from year to year and UAO must accommodate what they are able to spend.

The UAO budget for the 2012-13 school year was $150,000, but two-thirds of it was spent on the homecoming bands, Utt said.

“We then spent about $50,000 on food, production and marketing,” Rohrbacher said.

The homecoming concert was the first production Utt and Rohrbacher headed as Traditions co-directors.

“We were told the homecoming concert was one of the smoothest run events the [bands’] agent and the band had experienced,” Utt said.

Senior Alicia Keeley attended the concert and was one of almost 1,000 students in attendance at the Stroh Center, which holds 5,000 total seats.

“I thought more people would come, but I had fun anyway. The bands seemed disappointed but they said we’d still have fun,” Keeley said.

Utt and Rohrbacher are determined to stay in top form for the comedy show, “LOL with UAO.”

“We are trying to jump ahead in planning so we don’t get rushed last minute to get things done,” Rohrbacher said.

They expect that this show will be easier to set up compared to the concert.

“The homecoming concert is the stressful event. ‘LOL’ will need less equipment and there is only one person compared to two bands,” Rohrbacher said.

The two said they understand in order to fill up the seats, ticket prices must be reasonable for students.

“We are going to be plugging in numbers, trying to find an obtainable price for students, but also not have us lose money,” Utt said. “We are going to try and make this year’s ticket price really low.”

Utt said UAO will try to place a poll on The BG News’ website. It will have a list of potential comedians in the University’s price range. The poll will help UAO understand who the students are interested in seeing.

“The Stroh Center has not had very good attendance as of late and we are looking to get as many people as possible to this event,” Rohrbacher said.