Wyclef Concert Cancelled After Slow Sales

The Harvard Concert Commission (HCC)’s Nov. 6 concert featuring Wyclef Jean was cancelled last night because of lackluster ticket sales, Undergraduate Council (UC) President Matthew J. Glazer ’06 announced at an emergency UC meeting last night.

According to HCC Chairman Jack P. McCambridge ’06, the concert’s cancellation will cost the HCC between $25,000 and $30,000.

As of yesterday, concert organizers had sold less than half the tickets needed to break even with only four days left before the show.

“We were contractually obligated to spend between $80,000 and $100,000 [to put on the concert],” McCambridge said during yesterday’s meeting. “In my mind, the only financially prudent thing to do is to cancel the show.”

The show’s cancellation prompted questions from the UC leadership about the role of the council in planning social events on campus.

Both Glazer and UC Vice President Clay T. Capp ’06 vowed that the council would reexamine its role in the wake of this fall’s failed concert.

“We’ll take a very serious look at the HCC,” said Capp. “On one hand, it’s all on the table. A big priority will be to reevaluate and overhaul the way the UC is involved in social programming.”

Angry UC members present at yesterday’s meeting questioned the commission’s decision not to survey the student body before an artist was chosen.

“We have never had the luxury of time to deal with personal opinion more broadly,” said McCambridge, who fielded questions from UC members. “We can’t access student opinion.”

McCambridge said that in the future, the HCC will administer surveys to gauge student interest in artists being considered for campus shows, although the results will not be made public.

“Anything that is public constrains us in our negotiations,” McCambridge said.

NO DEMAND

According to McCambridge, ticket sales did not rise substantially since Sunday, when UC members began to frantically e-mail House and group lists with the news that the concert would be cancelled if sales did not increase.

At last night’s UC meeting, McCambridge reaffirmed that the HCC did everything it could to promote and sell tickets.

“I’m fairly positive that had there been tickets in students’ hands [to sell] in the dining hall, we [still] would not have sold 3,500 tickets,” said McCambridge. “Our outreach has been better than in the past. Demand wasn’t there.”

While it is unclear what effect the concert’s cancellation might have on the HCC’s future ability to secure artists, at least one insider in the entertainment industry did not believe that the HCC’s reputation would be damaged.

“In the future, artists might negotiate tougher deals if word got out that they cancelled the show, but it’s not unheard of, and it’s much more common in the university setting than it is in the public setting,” said Orin Snyder, a former entertainment lawyer. “Unless there is a specific pattern in cancellation, it’s not going to be an impediment for future concerts.”

Glazer said that the concert’s cancellation was “extremely disappointing.”

“This is going to make a lot of people unhappy, and we are going to have to deal with that,” he said. “We are going to have to take this in stride, and keep going.”

Students who already purchased tickets will be refunded, McCambridge said.

This marks the second time an appearance by Wyclef Jean at Harvard has been cancelled. The artist was scheduled to perform with Jurassic 5 in the spring of 2002, but the HCC cancelled the concert, fearing that not enough tickets would be sold.

—Staff writer Alexander D. Blankfein can be reached at ablankf@fas.harvard.edu.