UPC Announces Black Eyed Peas To Play Pershing Center Last Week

Story by Erik Mellgren 

| Published Mar 9, 2010

The University Program Council, which is in charge of bringing important music and comedy acts to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, announced yesterday it would be bringing the popular music group the Black Eyed Peas to Lincoln. The advertising committee of UPC said the group was set to play the Pershing Center last Wednesday at 8 p.m.

“This is a huge act that we are bringing in,” said Bernard Shaw, a representative of UPC. “We spent a lot of student fees bringing the Black Eyed Peas to Lincoln, and so, we are going to make sure that everyone knows that they played last week.”

UPC, which is funded by the student fees that every student at UNL pays, has recently come under fire for bringing in second-tier acts and forgetting to advertise for events, resulting in low attendance.

“UPC does get some cool acts every once in awhile. I mean, I went to Sam Beam a couple years ago, and that was pretty cool,” said UNL senior Doug Hill. “My freshman year they brought my favorite band, Guster, to Lincoln. The only problem was that I found out that Guster was here in the Daily Nebraskan last month.”

“I know that we have had problems in the past when it comes to getting the word out about our shows, but the Black Eyed Peas practically advertise for themselves,” said Shaw. “It was a great show last week and I expect it to sell out as soon as students hear about it.”

“Because UPC paid for the tickets, it was technically a sold out show," said Pershing Center affiliate Jenny Sellers. "The only problem was that we were only at half capacity the whole night.”

According to the Sellers, the tickets allocated for the community were completely sold out. Of the 8,000 tickets reserved for sale through UPC, 192 were actually purchased by students.
Students who attended the concert last week were shocked to see the advertisements this week.

“I had no idea it was a UPC event until I got there,” said UNL sophomore Lisa Franks. “I wish I knew UPC was doing it beforehand, it would have made getting tickets a whole lot easier and cheaper.”