Big Sean to come to Pitt in March

With his new album set to be released this spring, Big Sean, recruited by the Pitt Program… With his new album set to be released this spring, Big Sean, recruited by the Pitt Program Council, will be performing at the Fitzgerald Field House in March.

The Pitt Program Council has also narrowed its search for Bigelow Bash performers to a few acts, including Cobra Starship and Gavin DeGraw.

Alana Miller, the special events director of the Pitt Program Council, said that picking Big Sean wasn’t an easy decision. Several other contenders were considered, including artists such as Wiz Khalifa, Mac Miller and J. Cole.

“We kind of felt they were over-done in Pittsburgh,” the special events director said.

Miller said that the process of picking an act starts early in the school year. It starts with a committee of students that is open to anyone, and throughout the fall and beginning of the spring these students brainstorm what performers they want to bring in.

“It’s not as easy to say we want Big Sean, and then we get Big Sean. We come up with names, and then take them to our manager, and then we try to match up who’s touring, who we can afford and try to match up the dates. Big Sean was our best match,” Miller said.

PPC doesn’t disclose the budget for these performances, but the money mostly comes from the Student Activities Fund. This keeps tickets to the hip-hop concert at $5 each and admission to Bigelow Bash in the spring free for Pitt students.

Matt Auger, executive board director of PCC, said that the budget for the performances stays consistent from year to year.

“[The price] tends to stay in the same range. We have to keep within our budget, which is similar year to year. We try to keep everything as low as possible. Obviously we want a good name, but we don’t want to blow a bunch of money just because,” Auger said.

Tickets go on sale Feb. 1 at 10 a.m. at the Pitt Program Council’s ticket office in the William Pitt Union.

Auger said that the line for the B.o.B. concert tickets last year wrapped all the way around the surrounding concourse, and Miller said students started lining up at about 8:30 a.m. to guarantee themselves a ticket.

There will be a total of 4,000 tickets — 2,000 seated and 2,000 standing — on sale, with no limit on how many tickets a student can purchase.

One point that both Auger and Miller emphasized is that tickets are only for students with valid Pitt IDs.

PPC is also working on finalizing the details for Bigelow Bash, which is held during the latter part of the semester. Pop artist Ke$ha performed at last year’s Bash.

Auger said they have ideas about who the performers might be this year, but “we don’t like to release anything until we have the contract finalized.”

Miller did say that they have settled on two potential candidates for the spring festival.

“Cobra Starship’s in our consideration, but we are also looking at other things, too. We looked at Gavin Degraw,” Miller said. “Spring is a little bit harder. For Bigelow Bash, we try to do something poppier — it’s harder to find someone in our price range.”

Both concerts will have an opening act from Pitt selected through a rap battle and a battle of the bands. At least half the members of the participating acts must be Pitt students.

On Feb. 24 at Nordy’s Place, a hip-hop battle will occur. Each group will get 10 minutes to perform, and three judges will pick the winner that will open for Big Sean, Miller said.

He said that sign-ups for the hip-hop battle will start next week.

“I think it’s a cool opportunity for Pitt students to be able to say, ‘I opened for Big Sean,’ so a lot of their friends will come out,” Auger said.