Artist Ne-Yo was set to play Breslin Center on Thursday. The concert was announced by ASMSU earlier this semester.
With the cancellation of Ne-Yo’s performance, originally scheduled for Thursday at Breslin Center, there has been a collective sigh of student disappointment.
ASMSU Director of Public Relations Haley Dunnigan said the decision to cancel the concert was decided by ASMSU, MSU’s undergraduate student government, but involved several other stakeholders.
She said the cancellation, announced late Tuesday afternoon via ASMSU’s Twitter page, came as a result of low ticket sales, and she knew it was likely to shock students.
“I feel like students will be surprised,” Dunnigan said. “But there are people who support what we do, and there are people who have never supported what we do.”
ASMSU announced the concert at the end of March, with pop group Hot Chelle Rae announced as the opening act the following week.
At a meeting on Feb. 21, the general assembly voted to allocate up to $250,000 for the concert, but they currently don’t know how much of that money the organization will lose from the cancellation, Dunnigan said.
Hospitality business sophomore Candace Lai had tickets for the concert but isn’t necessarily upset with the cancellation — but how it was announced.
“I’m not that upset about it being cancelled, but more of the way it got cancelled,” Lai said. “I wasn’t aware of it, and that’s not right for the Breslin Center to not notify the people who have spent money on tickets.”
Although she did not plan on attending, anthropology junior Kelsey Mulholland said she thought Breslin Center completely had sold out of tickets for the concert.
“I’ve seen a lot of people posting on Facebook groups asking for tickets, and that made me think they were sold out,” Mulholland said.
But interdisciplinary studies in social science junior Allyson Huver said the R&B singer’s switch to producing could have affected his popularity and caused ticket sales to plummet.
“I know that he makes songs for people now, so he’s kinda old school,” Huver said. “People wanna see pop, and R&B is all smooth, so he’s kinda out of date.”
Mulholland said Hot Chelle Rae, who burst onto the music scene in 2011 with their single “Tonight Tonight,” would have brought more fans to the concert than Ne-Yo.
“It seems like more people are excited about the opener than him,” she said.
After planning the concert for weeks, Dunnigan admits she is disappointed by the schedule change.
“As a whole, I was just one of the people who put hours into making this a success,” Dunnigan said. “But we are all disappointed.”
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