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| Shoddy Management May Be To Blame For Exclusion Of Vans Concert | ||||||
| Last summer CSULB was a host venue for the Vans Warped Tour, where over 60 bands played for a sold-out day of punk rock and alternative music. �This year, however, the tour will not be taking place on campus, which is a decision that has disappointed many students.� The event proved to be very successful, and raised $79,000 for the campus, so why won't it be taking place at CSULB this year? | ||||||
| Guido Piotti, vice president of Associated Students, Inc., was the main organizer of the event last year, and he believes that the Facilities Management office is to blame.� According to Piotti, after the event took place on the rugby field and all the trash was cleaned up, a meeting was held by several faculty members, Facilities Management, the general manger from the pyramid, A.S., and concert promoter Goldenvoice, to discuss the event and what could improve, should it take place at CSULB again. �It was at this meeting, Piotti said, that Facilities Management claimed the tour caused massive damages to the field, and procured a bill for the promoter in the sum of $39,000. | ||||||
| Goldenvoice, which had already agreed to pay for any damage to the field up to $15,000, said they needed justification for anything above that figure. �According to Piotti, when they asked Facilities Management representative Dewayne Wolfe how he could justify a $39,000 bill, he claimed the field had damage from trucks, as well as a water main that had been ruptured when one of the vehicles drove over it. �Wolfe, Piotti said, "refused to show [exactly] where the damages were," and the promoter deemed them "punitive." | ||||||
| After this dispute, Facilities Management reassessed the damage and presented a slightly lower bill totaling $27,000 to the organizers of the event. �Facilities Management told Piotti that the $27,000 would cover the cost of repairs to the entire field, which included a particular area of grass that Piotti said could simply be reseeded and "was the size of a trailer." �Because Facilities Management had not been able to present adequate proof of the damages, Goldenvoice paid the school $15,000, the cost that was originally agreed upon for the repair of damages. �But what about the remaining $12,000 of Facilities Management?s $27,000 bill? | ||||||
| "Because Facilities Management had not proven the damages to be true," Piotti said, "the promoter refused to pay one penny more than $15,000. �[A.S.I.] had to pay the $12,000, which could have gone directly into the pocket of students through services, programs, and scholarships." �Piotti said he wanted to hold the tour on campus again but what happened next prevented him from making plans. | ||||||
| According to Piotti, Facilities Management took it upon itself to create new restrictions for who could use the field and how it could be used. �First, they said that no trucks could be driven on the field, which Piotti said would make it impossible for the Warped Tour since the trucks themselves serve as the stages. �Second, Facilities Management ordered that stages have to be brought in by hand; something Piotti said would be quite difficult, seeing as how the Warped Tour requires "thousands of pounds" of staging. �Finally, Facilities Management mandated that no forklifts could be used on the field; a rule Piotti thinks was made "to deter promoters from wanting to come here." | ||||||
| "Facilities Management," Piotti said, "is not something that only A.S. complains about, but the school as a whole does. �From the discussions I've had, many [promoters and event organizers] complain that they have been overcharged, and from an administrative standpoint, this needs to stop. �What Facilities Management did to students was not only shameful but also unacceptable. �We could have used those $12,000 to better further students needs through the board of control," Piotti said, which is where student organizations go to petition funds for events and programs. | ||||||
| Associate Vice President of physical planning and facilities management, Scott Charmack, when asked about the bill that Piotti believed to be exaggerated, said, "There were no inflated bills. �Those bills did not even cover all the damage. �There is no question about that." �Charmack also said the promoter did not acknowledge rules and disobeyed protocol that it agreed to abide by. | ||||||
| Charmack believes that the field "is a classroom, and is first and foremost used as a classroom. �If you drive a cart across the field [you will see that] it is uneven, and the kinesiology and physical education department said that they had to protect their classroom." | ||||||
| The new rules that Facilities Management set forth, Charmack said, are not unfair.� "The new rules affect all events," Charmack said, and noted, "the only area a stage can go in would be the north end of the field, right by the softball field." According to Charmack, the concept of the new rules is "to protect this area and over the next four or five years get it back into decent shape. �The only interest the university has is to protect those fields for instruction." | ||||||
| Charmack said he is unaware of why the Warped Tour is not coming back to campus this year. | ||||||
| Copyright Gerry Wachovsky, 2004, and Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. | ||||||
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