There were about 400 vacant seats at this month's Ludacris concert, hosted by the Michigan Student Assembly, University Activities Center and Hillel earlier this month.

While Hillel was spared by an agreement that it had made with MSA guaranteeing the full reimbursement of the $15,000 it had fronted for the event, UAC and MSA felt the financial hit of unsold tickets and an unexpectedly high event cost.

In July, Andrew Bilinsky, vice president of UAC subsidiary Big Ticket Productions said that the estimated cost of the concert was somewhere between $85,000 and $90,000, but at $115,000, the actual cost of the event was significantly more than Bilinsky's mid-summer projections.

Bilinsky also said in July that he believed the concert would generate a profit for all the sponsors involved. But in reality, the event grossed a disappointing total of $70,074, resulting in a major deficit that was hence shouldered by the two main sponsors of the concert.

UAC, the primary sponsor of the concert, contributed $60,000 and ended up losing $24,556 in total. MSA invested $40,000 dollars in the event, losing a total of $20,370.

MSA President Jesse Levine said that MSA "is not a business but a programming board" and therefore never planned to make money. Levine said the goal of the concert was to bring together as many students as possible from a variety of different backgrounds.

Prior to the concert, organizers had said the reason they had chosen to bring acclaimed rap star Ludacris to campus instead of the alternative rock musicians that the groups have brought in past years was chiefly because of his "massive crossover appeal."

Another main justification for choosing Ludacris was his recent activism concerning social-justice issues, including his role in 2004's critically acclaimed film "Crash." In addition to performing, MSA officials had voiced hopes that Ludacris would participate in additional events concerning diversity and other social issues when he visited the campus. After this failed to happen, Levine explained that MSA "didn't really expect him to (stay), but had hoped that he would do some sort

of dialogue during the concert."

Although the rapper did not seem to participate in any particularly valuable dialogue - "U of M girls give me U of M head," was his most notable quote of the night - Levine said he is satisfied with the outcome of the concert. "Never before has an event brought so many people with so many different backgrounds together," he said.

LSA senior Alana Frankfort, who attended the concert, confirmed the diversity of the crowd. "It was worth the money to see the social dynamics of the audience," she said.

Students were the target audience for the concert and, as a result, MSA publicized the event almost exclusively to University students on the Ann Arbor and Flint campuses. Levine said MSA didn't spend any money on publicity, but based the campaign solely on free press, flyers on campus and Diag handouts.

Levine admitted that inadequate publicity and undependable technology could have contributed to low attendance, though adding that "the interest was there" and that the student body seemed enthusiastic about Ludacris coming to campus. Levine said MSA "learned some lessons" about event planning from the experience.

The importance of reliable technology was one lesson that was learned the hard way after ticketmaster.com shut down for an entire day, blocking ticket sales. Levine says that "in hindsight, (MSA) should have probably done a lottery or made an authentic student website" to raise ticket sales.

Levine also said "it would not have hurt to have more publicity," but that, in light of the numerous other events that MSA was focusing on at the same time as the concert, this was difficult.

Despite disappointing tickets sales, Levine said he considers the concert an "unqualified success" and believes the sponsors accomplished their goal of encouraging diversity.

At least some students agreed. "You would usually think that Ludacris would be in Detroit or something," Frankfort said. "It showed the diversity of the student government."