News

VPSE fired after concert

Dropkick planning causes SG to cut Gerke

Posted on Nov. 13, 2008, at 12:00 a.m.

Ticket scanning malfunctions resulted in a line stretching around the track at Morse Field at the Dropkick Murphys concert on Thursday, Nov. 6. With the Field House as a first-time concert venue, other problems arose. More than a dozen recorded injuries and restroom issues were cited as reasons for the firing of Student Government’s Vice President of Student Entertainment Andrew Gerke. He was set to be in the position for one semester, graduating this December.

“There were just a bunch of little things that added up, and administration took it the wrong way,” Gerke said.

“It was a successful concert in terms of the band, and the crowd was energized. But we had a variety of other issues related to things like ticketing, restrooms and other things along that line that don’t really directly impact the concert-viewing experience, but they can have an impact on Student Government and future concerts,” President of Student Government James Lyons said.

With a long checklist to fulfill coming up to the concert, Gerke said he unknowingly neglected to set up the scanners completely.

“I didn’t know the ticket scanners were not going to work at the door. It wasn’t as thorough as it needed to be. I didn’t know I needed to sign online for them and I needed all these special codes for it. I kind of assumed they were good,” Gerke said. “You forget to check something like that ahead of time . and that’s my fault. It all seems like stuff I should’ve done, and because I’m director, I’m completely reliable for it.”

Lyons said programming the scanners should have been planned ahead of time. He said not having scanners at the door did not directly cause any problems, “but it had the potential to do so.”

Another issue Lyons cited for the firing was inadequate planning related to bathrooms and portable toilets. “Simply there weren’t enough,” Lyons said. “That meant we had to increase restroom capacity inside the building, which was unplanned for and resulted in significant changes to the plan that was initially in place.”

There were five portable toilets for the 2,800 concert attendees. One was wheelchair accessible. Gerke told the company the type of event and the expected attendance and relied on their estimate for adequate facilities. “You go on someone else’s word,” he said. “I don’t know how many porta-potties you should get per person. That’s not something that I’m pretty savvy with. I’ve never, you know, allotted porta-potties for events. And maybe I should’ve been like, hey, you know, five Porta Potties, that doesn’t seem right. That’s about 800 people per Porta Pottie. I should’ve double-checked, and that’s where the organization should’ve come on my part.”

“For students who had to wait 45 minutes for a restroom, I would consider that a damage to the viewing experience. We were less confident than I’d like to be that all the tickets being used were properly validated,” Lyons said.

Issues with a fence company to secure the portable toilet arose on the day of the show.

“You work with a lot of verbal agreements, and you hope that not only are you doing your job correctly but so isn’t everyone else in on it. There were just a lot of situations where, you know, they had to put it on someone, so it was my fault. Apparently I wasn’t doing my job well enough.”

Gerke said it is difficult to foresee or plan for every possible issue.

“There’s just so much, so many things, bases that you have to cover in that position, and, you know, it might as well be a full-time job. You might as well just stop school and going to classes and just, you know, do the Student Entertainment thing,” Gerke said. “Because otherwise, someone’s going to get drowned; they’re going to get drowned with work. And that’s what I worry about in the future, is that someone that has the experience got fired, I worry for that next person in line.”

Lyons said he felt Gerke was not prepared to handle these administrative issues for the O.A.R. concert. “Did he flat-out come to me and tell me ‘I can’t resolve them.’? No. Did a variety of other factors indicate to me that he wasn’t prepared to do so? Yes.” Lyons cited “an unwillingness to work with the organizations that would be necessary to resolve those issues.” Lyons said there was, to his knowledge, no reason for this unwillingness.

Lyons was not directly involved in hiring Gerke.

Steven Moran was the Student Government president at the time of Gerke’s hire. Moran said that Gerke had good credentials in the music industry and good references.

His experience included working for the Cumberland County Civic Center for several years as the Northeast talent adviser. He recently returned Bob Dylan and Cher to Portland and booked Elton John for one of only three American gigs. At UMaine, Gerke worked on the final Bumstock in 2006 and Dashboard Confessional, with a resume stretching as far back as Gavin Degraw in April 2005.

“I don’t know what the situation was to cause him to get overwhelmed to not fulfill the duties of his office, but I couldn’t have foreseen that he was going to make the administrative errors that he did,” Moran said.

“This had been a dream of his – to be the VPSE – because he had been passed over for the position once or twice because he was more inexperienced at the time,” Moran said. “. He told me his other commitments wouldn’t be a factor, that he would be wrapping them up, that they would be more summer commitments. Obviously maybe he wasn’t completely truthful with me. Maybe he had more on his plate than I realized.” Moran said it seemed like Gerke had been more than capable of handling the job.

Gerke said that with the two-concert series he bit off more than he could chew. “I wasn’t quantifying what I should give. I think I was more thinking about ‘How cool would it be to have two shows rather than one, in two different genres, rather than one?’” Gerke said his goal was to cater to all students on campus. “The university isn’t going to have concerts of that caliber probably ever again.”

Lyons said there is wiggle room for mistakes to be made, but it must be kept to a certain range.

“The contingency planning and organization was not the level it had been in the past.” Lyons said his focus is on the next concert and making sure all of the issues brought up at the Dropkick Murphys concert will not be repeated.

Lyons fired Gerke on the afternoon of Nov. 10. He then announced that former Senator and Assistant Vice President for Student Entertainment Abtin Mehdizadegan will step into the role of acting vice president of Student Entertainment “to ensure that the coming O.A.R. concert is a success.”

Lyons plans to increase security and restroom capacity and do dry runs of the scanners for the O.A.R concert. “I think the concert will be a success.”

Applications for the vice president of Student Entertainment position were out as of Nov. 12 and are due back on Nov. 19. The applicants will be interviewed and the nominees will be presented to senate. There the senate will vote to decide who will be the new hire.

Senate can appeal Gerke’s firing.