Carolina Productions paid comedian Ahmed Ahmed $5,000 to perform on campus last semester.
Did you have to Google his name? That’s OK; we had to, too.
But what isn’t OK is the fact that only 63 students ended up seeing him perform. That works out to an average ticket price of $79.37, a whopping sum for a guy few people have ever heard of.
With their attendance numbers from last year now out, it’s shocking to see how much money Carolina Productions wastes on events that are poorly advertised, poorly attended or just plain boring.
Some of the lesser-known acts that CP has booked recently are incredibly talented. Just take a look at Gina Loring, an amazing slam poet who was featured at a Spoken Words Wednesday event in the spring. CP paid $4,000 for 37 people to see her.
That’s the problem: If these events are poorly promoted and no one bothers to show up, then what’s the point of even hosting them?
We’ve said it before, and we’re going to say it again: CP needs to get its act together, and fast. We shouldn’t have to settle to settle for second-rate acts at exorbitant costs.
And if the group does manage to land a high-quality act, CP needs to make sure it gets the word out.
As college students, we’re bound to be busy with term papers, extracurriculars and the rest. It’s hard enough to keep with our own lives, let alone with CP’s schedule. So unless it improves the quality of its acts and its promotion, CP’s problems aren’t going away.