After 2015’s Juice Jam, University Union had 229 days to prepare for its next big event: Block Party 2016. Now, with just three of those 229 days left, UU’s co-concert directors Steven Magee and Blair Shulman are in the home stretch of a long Block Party preparation process that started on day one.

With 229 days to work with, one might think UU could announce a lineup earlier than 26 days before the event, as they did on April 3. It’s a complaint Magee said he sees a lot, since he is often reading UU’s Twitter mentions in an effort to see what students want.

But the truth is, there are massive amounts of details that go into planning the three-act show, and Magee said locking in a bill isn’t the first priority.

Step one for Magee and Shulman is to talk with Pete Sala, SU’s vice president and chief facilities officer. Sala is lead man at the Carrier Dome, and every year he works with UU to coordinate Block Party. The biggest point of their dialogue is setting capacity, something Magee said artists must know when considering to play a show.

Daily Orange File Photo

In previous years, the format for capacity has been to offer floor tickets, and a first, second and third tier of seats. The floor is limited to only 3,000 occupants due to fire code, so the stage is positioned closer to one end of the Dome.

Last year, they took a different approach. The wings of the stadium were opened for more seating, but the third tier was cut. The same strategy was used this year, but after floor tickets sold out in minutes, the third tier was again put on sale.

With capacity settled, Magee and Shulman were one step closer to acquiring the talent. In their search, Magee said they obviously wanted to look for artists that fit the student body’s preferences — which UU gets a sense of in its annual survey. Every year, the results are consistent: rap and EDM dominate the replies for favorite genre. But Magee pointed out it’s not as simple as booking the artists the survey says are most popular.

“Between the time we send out the survey and the time we get it back, a lot of the tier two artists are now tier one artists,” Magee said. “And a lot of the tier one artists are headlining Lollapalooza, and we can’t afford them anymore.”

Another problem UU has is that Block Party is not the social event that Juice Jam is. To sell tickets, they must target a specific crowd. As a result, UU often gets complaints about the Block Party bill, especially its lack of genre diversity.

This year, Blair said it is the crossover appeal of the co-headline bill that most likely limited complaints and pushed tickets to move so quickly.

Booking these big names starts with a shortlist of somewhere between five and 10 artists. Magee and Shulman sent out some initial offers in the December, and had both The Chainsmokers and Chance The Rapper booked by around mid-February.

At first, they send offers that are basically fill-in-the-blank documents with a few contracting items — but not an official contract. The artist’s camp then has about seven to 10 days to show interest. If they do, it’s then a joint operation between Magee, Shulman and Mercy Lovado of the Office of Student Activities to work out an actual contract. Once contracts are signed, UU can announce the bill.

In the final weeks leading up to the show, Magee and Shulman are in the last stage of preparation, something that is known as the advance. Magee said advancing consists of the logistical talks and ironing out every last detail possible. It ranges from when the artist is getting to the airport to how many people are in their traveling party to when they want their catering set up. The goal is to know as much information as possible so that the day of the show goes smoothly.

Aside from Magee and Shulman, UU’s other departments have been applying finishing touches to round out all the work that went into these 229 days. The marketing directors have been promoting to sell the remaining tickets. The press director has been handling numerous press requests.

It’s a lot of work from everyone involved. But in the end, when he’s watching the show side stage, Magee said it’s this synergy that will be most satisfying.

“You look out on the crowd, you look at the artist, and everybody’s happy,” Magee said. “It’s a huge team effort, so it’s not like ‘I did it,’ but it’s ‘wow, look what we accomplished.’”

Published on April 25, 2016 at 9:48 pm

Contact: jtbloss@syr.edu | @jtbloss