Frost Amphitheatre is set to come alive again on May 19 with a performance by Modest Mouse in the first Frost Revival Concert. Tickets for the show, with opening acts Eyes Lips Eyes and Benjamin Francis Leftwich, will go on sale April 23 at a student price of $20.
Student-group funding of the concert totals about $130,000 according to Emily Pollock <\#213>13, co-director Stanford Concert Network (SCN). Pollock said SCN contributed $75,000 from the group’s special fees while the ASSU Undergraduate Senate and the Graduate Student Council (GSC) dipped into buffer funds to provide another $55,000.
Stephen Trusheim ’13, one of the members of the organizing committee for the event, said that the total cost of the concert cannot be calculated until “the end, when we reconcile all the accounts.”
Both Pollock and Trusheim are part of a committee that has been try to stage a concert at Frost Amphitheatre for about a year. Although the concert is being presented by SCN, it is also sponsored by the ASSU (including the GSC), Cardinal Nights, the Office of Special Events and Protocol, Student Activities and Leadership and the Vice Provost for Student Affairs.
“We all realize what each other’s expertise is, and there’s times we make group decisions and, there’s times we let, say, SCN decide something,” Trusheim said.
Trusheim said his primary role was ensuring that there was enough money for the event, one of the committee’s biggest issues.
“We were told that Frost is untouchable; it’s way too hard,” Pollock said. “But it seemed like all of the aspects were coming together last spring and we were like, ‘Alright, let’s go for it. Everyone’s in support of it. We’re going to make this happen and it’s going to be great.’”
Marine Denolle, co-chair of GSC, said that the GSC spent a lot of time discussing how they could contribute “because all we saw was this amazing event.”
The issue with graduate student involvement, however, was the fact that Frost Revival will be an alcohol-free event, Pollock said.
“It’s hard for graduate students to not have the option of beer or alcohol,” Denolle said. “But we do understand that without our financial support the event would not have happened, so it was pretty clear we wanted to help let it happen anyways.”
Pollock and Trusheim agreed that the biggest hope financially would be to go beyond breaking even after ticket sales and have enough profit to go toward a reserve that will hopefully fund a concert of this magnitude on an annual basis.
To choose a headlining act, surveys were sent out to ensure that the choice would be one favored by students. Event planners compiled a list of options from the 1,900 student responses. Modest Mouse landed in the top five.
“Once we start to narrow it down, it really depends on the artist timing, and all the stars just came together with Modest Mouse,” Pollock said. “We’re really pleased with the headlining. We kind of have a progression from acoustic rock to high-energy rock, so it’s going to be fun.”
Eyes Lips Eyes is a band that has played at smaller Stanford venues before, so SCN had no problems booking the group, Pollock said.
Alberto Aroeste ’13, SCN co-director along with Pollock, reached out to Benjamin Francis Leftwich, an English singer-songwriter.
In an effort to make Frost Revival more of a music and arts festival, the committee has been working with groups such as the Product Design Student Association (PDSA) to bring in artwork to line the entrance to Frost Amphitheatre. According to Pollock, if everything works out, there will be large and possibly interactive art projects around the venue.
“Hopefully the concert itself will just be an amazing capstone to the year, just showing off everything we love about Stanford: art, sustainability, music and hanging out together in Frost Amphitheatre,” Trusheim said.