Snoop Dogg show was too soon to plan

A limited planning timeline for a free Snoop Dogg concert left concert planners no choice but to move off campus, sources said Wednesday.

The concert, won as part of a promotional push for Electronic Arts’ new video game, “Bulletstorm,” was originally pitched as an on- campus event.

But formal planning talks between the University’s Division of Student Affairs and EA suddenly ended two days after they began, when EA’s events staff informed the University that the concert would instead be held in the Raleigh Amphitheater.

“We couldn’t make it work because of the timing,” said Sara Sprinkles, EA’s senior events manager. “If we had had a little bit more time, we probably could have gotten (the University) all that it wanted.”

Sprinkles called Christopher Payne, UNC’s associate vice chancellor for student affairs, last Tuesday.

“I called her back on Wednesday, and told her that we didn’t have enough information to make an informed decision,” Payne said. “We evaluated the specifications and plans like we would do with any other major event.”

Payne, whose office regularly handles large campus events like concerts, said that the planning process for such events usually takes at least two months.

As part of that process, Payne said that he asked EA for technical specifications and security coordination information, among other details.

After sending EA a second batch of questions last Thursday, Payne opened an email to discover that the company was moving the concert to Raleigh instead.

“I think we were trying to evaluate what their needs were and what we could provide to host a major event of that nature, but we never got to that point,” he said.

In an email Tuesday, EA Campus Representative Tyler Bronzino, a senior, suggested that University officials were not receptive to hosting the event on campus.

Bronzino did not return calls for comment.

Sprinkles said the short span of time between the end of the contest in March and the pre-determined concert date of April 23 proved to be too difficult to manage.

“It was a challenge posed to me,” Sprinkles said. “Trying to figure out who the right person it was to talk to, every day was flying by and I was waiting for more and more information — but we had to start promoting the event, because we were on a tight timeline.”

The concert date was determined by Snoop Dogg’s schedule, Sprinkles said.

The hip-hop artist has a concert scheduled in Charlottesville, Va., on April 25.

EA will begin distributing tickets to students on campus sometime next week, Sprinkles said, with priority going to students who voted in the Facebook contest that won the concert.

“I don’t want to speak on behalf of EA,” Payne said. “They were very committed to providing this event for UNC students, and we wanted to honor that commitment.”

Contact the Arts Editor at arts@dailytarheel.com.