(01-04-2019 03:30 PM)Hart Foundation Wrote:  I don’t particularly care which concerts might come to the new arena because I live too far away, but who do you think will be on the schedule?

My take is that there won’t be many, if any significant concerts.
1 Tiny market that will struggle to sell enough tickets for promoters liking
2 JPJ is less than an hour away and will always get the select shows.

I foresee college concerts from the artists that do cross country campus tours and then some mid level shows for those artists on their way up or on their way down.

But if we have a music fanatic that wants to fund the $88 million oversized basketball arena so they can see more 2nd tier concerts, I will shake your hand and say thank you.

I mean, even if they can somehow squeeze 7,000 tickets into the Bank (though probably closer to 6k), you're still talking 1/3 the size of the student body. Add in BC and EMU, plus the fact that it (along with JPJ) are the only venues within a couple hours and if it's a weekend show their friends from other VA colleges will drive in for the party. Otherwise you're driving 2 hours to Richmond, Roanoke, or Dulles/DC. JPJ can only fit but so many concerts into their schedule. It's not like they're hosting every artist that comes through the east coast. There's plenty to go around. While UPB has had some misses, even with a much smaller budget than what they'll have they've had several sellouts or near sellouts. Basically, JMU will be able to go from tier 3 to tier 2 artists. They'll never get tier 1 (hell, even JPJ usually doesn't get those), but it's a whole different class of artist when you have the potential to get a ~300k or above artist.

Also, don't underestimate what stations like Q101 can do to sponsor bands coming in if the venue booking is done separately from the University (or at least if the University allows outside entities to book concerts).