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Vice President of Student Entertainment Andrew Gerke was fired Monday afternoon less than a week until O.A.R.’s performance at the University of Maine – shifting the control and planning of the second major concert of the semester.
Abtin Mehdizadegan will assume the VP of Student Entertainment responsibilities for O.A.R., finalizing the event details and welcoming the band to the Field House.
Gerke’s removal came as part of the post-Dropkick cleanup, pre-O.A.R. preparation. “Apparently I wasn’t doing my job well enough,” Gerke said.
Complaints at the Dropkick Murphys concert on Nov. 6 included outdoor waits of over an hour, crowd violence and long lines for limited restroom facilities.
The wait to enter the Field House was a result of a ticket scanner oversight. Mehdizadegan said the issue is “addressed, it’s fine; it’s fixed,” after spending an hour with IT on Tuesday.
Doors will open on time at 7 p.m., with the show set to begin at 7:45. “We don’t expect it to take 45 minutes to get everyone in,” Mehdizadegan said.
Private crowd security will increase from 18 at Dropkick to 34 at O.A.R., with two “mosh teams” on the floor. Crowd surfers will be swiftly removed. This no-tolerance policy was not in effect for Dropkick Murphys.
“If they thought things were bad for [that] show, good luck on Monday,” Gerke said. “It’s a bigger show and they’re going to run into new problems.”
Although both Dropkick Murphys and O.A.R. formed in 1996 and neither enjoys a vastly larger amount of success or sales, Gerke felt O.A.R. the weightier concert of the two he booked.
“The [Field House] for Dropkick was a brand-new venue for us,” Gustavo Burkett said. As director of Campus Activities and Events, Burkett is adviser to Student Government and Student Entertainment. “We haven’t done a concert there in a long time, a concert of this magnitude. Whenever you use a facility for the first time, you work out the glitches after. So that’s what we did,” Burkett said.
Little pressure seems to be felt in Student Entertainment at this time. “I feel very confident,” Mehdizadegan said. “I think we’re really just, you know, being a lot more thorough.”
“I don’t think O.A.R. is going to be a problem at all,” Burkett said. “This is what we are prepared to do. In student affairs, crisis sometimes gets people more pumped about something so things get done better and gets juices flowing, in a way. I think Abtin is prepared, Student Government is prepared,” Burkett said.
Tickets for O.A.R. are still available at $15 for UMaine students, $20 for Maine college students and $30 for general public.
“To the average student, I’m not sure if they’ll notice anything other than the fact that the bathroom line’s going to be a lot shorter,” Mehdizadegan said.
