PAGE SIX
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
TUESDAY, MARCH 22,
As The Kansan Sees It . . .
Money and Seats Are The Bottleneck— Anyone Got A Spare Million Or Two?
Looks like we have put our foot in it again. We have been yelling as loud as the rest of the students about the arrangements for students at University concerts. Someday we are going to learn not to complain about a thing unless we can suggest something better.
A lot of letters have come to us from students, all with the same gripe—that the best seats are being reserved for outsiders, while the students are paying their good money for what's left.
Figuring there must be an answer to the problem if we tried hard enough to find it, we went after all the background information we could get. We did not come up with a solution, but we did arrive at these conclusions:
2. Doing away with outside ticket sales is practical only if the activity fee system for students is abolished. Then each student who wanted to attend the various events, would have to pay the regular season ticket fee on a first come- first-served, basis.
1. The problem never can be completely solved as long as the auditorium will, at best, accommodate less than half the student body.
3. The basketball ticket system could be used with each student having a choice of half the events and paying at the regular outside admission price.
Before you sit down and bang out another indignant letter, consider these facts and see if you can offer a solution:
Prior to 1927, concerts were held in Robinson gymnasium. Everyone, students included, paid the regular admission price. Very few students attended. (Incidentally, this is the way the concert situation is handled at many large universities.) Up to that time the largest fee ever paid a performer was $1,500. In 1927 Hoch auditorium was dedicated with a recital by the incomparable Galli-Curci, who commanded a fee of $4,000.
In 1927 when the activity fee system was installed, each student was assessed 80 cents a year for concerts. It was soon obvious that this did not cover one-third of the cost of the course. The only other money available was appropriation from the state which is received today and amounts to less than $2,000.
Some way had to be found to underwrite the balance of the cost of a concert course which usually runs from $12,000 to $15,000 a year for talent, plus $1,000 to $1,500 for stagehand service, etc. This was done by selling season tickets to the faculty and a few outsiders. Of the 3,785 seats in Hoch auditorium, $73 are reserved for faculty and outsiders. There are 850 full and part-time faculty members. These people pay $9.75 for a season ticket (the faculty recently were granted a 20 per cent discount which makes their fee $7.81—nine times that of the students.)
Any reasonable person could see that you cannot sell tickets at those prices and not give in return fairly decent seats.
That is not to say that the best seats are all reserved. Here are the seats that are reserved: 15 rows in the two center sections on the main floor level, 12 rows of one center
section on the main floor include, two side lower sections in the first balcony, and three rows in one section of the top balcony. No arrangement could be made that could prevent some persons from getting better seats than others. But we are lucky, for unlike Missouri or Nebraska who use old armory buildings, we have an auditorium in which the view and acoustics are almost uniform in various sections.
Dale Judy in a recent letter was the only person to offer any sort of a practical solution to even a part of the problem. He suggested the students be given a chance to reserve seats before the concert. This would be a first-come-first-served arrangement, but it would eliminate having to go to Hoch auditorium in the middle of the afternoon.
It has a big drawback, however. It would require a full-time staff to handle the bookkeeping. The rush to reserve tickets for the Fred Waring concert caused the Fine Arts office to close its doors. They could not get anything else done. Then too, many students would prefer going to the concert early to standing in line during the day to reserve a ticket.
As for the complaint that the best attractions are not covered by the activity ticket, the contention is not true. With the exception of Fred Waring, what event can you name that would compare with those offered on the concert course?
As for the Pennsylvanians, it was just luck they came to K.U. at all. Dean D. M. Swarthout's son-in-law, Fred Hayes, was in charge of Waring's bookings. Most big name artists such as Waring are not connected with any concert course. They can bargain for more as individuals. And even if they could be secured, the K.U. course could not afford them.
Learning of Waring's availability, Dean Swarthout and other members of the administration, got together and agreed that the students would probably like to hear Waring badly enough to pay the same price they would pay to hear him in Kansas City. They did. Fred Waring left Lawrence with $6,300 more than he had when he arrived.
As we said at the beginning, we see no practical way out of this dilemma. If anyudent can come
University Daily Kansan
Student Newspaper of the UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Member of the Kansas Press Asm.
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Editor-in-Chief...Anne Murphy
Managing Editor...Bill P. Mayer
Asst. Man. Editor...Mary Benton
Asst. Man. Editor...Richard D. Barton
City Editor...Nora Temple
City Editor...Gerald Fetterotter
Asst. City Editor...Mary Benton
Asst. City Editor...Harold Reddoch
Sports Editor...Marvin Rowlands
Asst. Sports Editor...Dan Schaefer
Asst. Sports Editor...Bug Wright
Tel. Editor...Larry Funk
Asst. Tel. Editor...Russell Oleson
Society Editor...Neomi Reddoch
Asst. Soc. Ed...Virginia Frost
Chalk Talk
We don't know whether it was a coincidence or not, but a recording company released a record with the "Missouri Waltz" on one side and "Lost Weekend" on the other just about the time "it" was legal in Kansas.
Business Manager Don Welch
Manager Charles Chandler
Nat'l Adv. Mgr Bob Boltho
Circulation Mgr Dean Knuth
Willingham Mgr William Wellington
Promotion Mgr Irass Gissen
The 4 year-old brother of a student was touring the campus with his parents recently. He whistled at the girls walking by.
His mother told him to stop. When he asked why, she answered, "Because I don't like it."
The boy replied, "Maybe you don't, but the girls do."
Spring arrived officially Monday, but preceding it by one day was the first picnic we're heard about this year. Won't be long now until a professor will be able to find more of his students at Lone Star than in class.
When a student followed a suggestion in this column and began digging up facts about the K.U. beer drinkers, he was told by one waitress:
"Well, I've worked in the coffee places and in the beer places. Me. I like the beer places. I don't have to empty the ash trays so often."
Sharpe To Direct Talks On Selling
Fred Sharpe, salesmanship lecturer for the University Extension, will be the key figure at two educational programs in Osage City and Junction City April 4 through April 8.
Mr. Sharpe will present all the lectures at Osage City in a foursession program on "Salesmanship for Employees and Employers." The purpose of the program is to stimulate interest in selling and to enable sales people to get more successful sales response.
Mr. Sharpe will also conduct all sessions of a four-session program on "Salesmanship Today" at Junction City.
The programs were arranged by Quincy L. Atha, field representative of the extension division, and will be sponsored by the Chambers of Commerce of Osage City and Junction City.
A memorial plaque to a fiction character, "Tugboat Annie," rests on a traffic island in downtown Tacoma, Wash.
up with an idea, Dean Swarthout whose headache the concert course is, would be eternally grateful.
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Coal Miner Receives 15-Year-Old Payment
Lilly, Pa. —(U.P.) John McIntosh,
67-year-old retired coal miner, was offered pay for a car of coal he dug
15 years ago.
The car was loaded by McIntosh one day in 1933 just before a cave-in covered the load and the shaft from which the coal was dug.
Mcntosh moved along to another mine.
Recently the caved-in section was reopened by another mine operator, who found the buried car and recognized the digger's identification.
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Legionnaires Are you using your Lawrence Post?
The Lawrence post of the American Legion welcomes you on your "free" hours. Our club facilities include Lunch and Refreshment Service at all times Sundays too! Also special Legion functions which only you, as a member, may enjoy.
Join your buddies—Get a party—Come on down! There's always a gang and a "bull-session." All veterans invited.
American Legion
214 W. 8th
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