This year’s Owl Prowl Homecoming concert on Oct. 29 at the Student Union Outdoor Stage features Jay Sean, T-Pain and DJ Skribble.

Program Board director Trevor Lewis explains that the Homecoming concert “plays a vital role in uniting the student body.”

“We’re able to come together and root for FAU as a football team and the concert is a great way to kick start it,” he added.

Unlike previous Owl Prowl concerts, this year’s concert features hip hop, something the Program Board strays from because it’s featured at the Freaker’s Ball and they don’t want to repeat the same style. Lewis stated that their reasoning for switching it up this year is due to a lot of positive feedback for having this style at the Homecoming concert.

Student suggestions for artists are hard to utilize, according to Lewis. “Say you do a student poll for desired artists and one artist wins highly favored. It turns out that this artist is unavailable to perform and then we would have to restart the polling process.”

Instead artists are chosen by the Homecoming director and his staff, deliberating factors such as price, artist availability, easiness of working with artists and how well the artists do in concert.

There was difficulty in getting artists for the concert this year, not only due to artist availability. Their selection process was cut short by the student body presidential elections contestation.

The delay in having the president sworn in hindered his ability to appoint a homecoming director.

“Despite this, we still think we are pulling through as great as a concert as we could have,” stated Lewis.

One important aspect of this concert that sets it apart from last year’s is the cost. FAU students will have to pay $10, unlike last year, which was free for students.

“It comes down to production costs,” said Lewis. “The production this year is much bigger than last year. We still expect a great turnout because if you look at the quality of production, you are getting this high quality event where anywhere else this concert would be $20-40 for an alright ticket. The ticket costs $50 for non-FAU students because we pay for the concert through tuition fees, so this will make it fair for our students, and it’s still a pretty good deal.”

Several students were asked to share their reactions about having to pay for the concert this year:

Brett Michael Rocker, a sophomore accounting major, said, “I would never pay to go see an artist I didn’t like. The only person of the three I’ve heard of before is T-Pain and I’ve never really listened to his music.”

He believes the concert should be free just like the All Time Low concert earlier this year because it would let more people know about FAU if they don’t already.  Johnathon De La Cruz, a freshman chemistry major, also stated he wouldn’t pay money to go see an artist he doesn’t listen to.

Other students like sophomore elementary education major Sarah Tibbs, freshman criminal justice major Nick Capitini, junior psychology major Dario Coral and freshman accounting major Louise Chiwara believe $10 is a fair price to pay for the concert.

Despite the concert fee, Lewis expects a great student turnout due to the high quality production, and hopes to achieve his personal goal 2,000 tickets sold.

Bibi Patel is a contributing writer with the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected].