“We’re trying to get as much student feedback as possible," said CUAB Vice President of Outreach Boateng Kubi in an interview conducted in September.
There were 1,039 responses for the survey, which was released to The Daily Tar Heel on Sunday. Of those responses, 41.87 percent voted to see an Urban (hip-hop and R&B) artist; 33.21 percent voted to see an Alternative artist, the category Rice was in.
Rice was pitted against Slightly Stoopid and The Neighbourhood. In the alternative category, None of the Above was the most popular selection with 32.8 percent of 625 responses. The Neighbourhood was the next popular with 32.32 percent of responses. Rice came in third with 22.24 percent of responses.
The results of the first survey, conducted Sept. 4 to Sept. 26, could not be obtained by The Daily Tar Heel as CUAB refused to provide the numbers from the first survey without a public record request, despite providing the numbers from the second. CUAB said they won’t release information containing PID information.
Brian Lackman, Carolina Union student activities program coordinator, said CUAB started talking to Rice’s management about a contract in late November, which was finalized in early February.
With an overall budget of $120,000 for the concert, CUAB spent $77,000 booking Rice, said Jonathan Perron, the concert chairperson. The openers are part of Rice’s tour and were included in the cost.
According to emails released to The Daily Tar Heel, Lackman emailed Carolina Union Director Crystal King on Dec. 9 informing her that Rice was “the artist (they were) currently looking to book” and that Rick Steinbacher, the senior associate athletic director for external communications, was trying to set up a meeting with Perron.
“(Athletics) had heard that we were interested in pursuing him, potentially, as one of our options for the spring Jubilee concert, and really the biggest thing that they purchased was really a change from our original venue idea,” Lackman said. “They wanted to help support their spring football game and work together in a better campus-wide, collaborative piece.”
