UTAH TECH UNIVERSITY'S STUDENT NEWS SOURCE | March 28, 2024

Here’s how running into an artist at Megaplex has turned into a sold-out concert

Benson Boone will perform in the Burns Arena March 25. Annie Sorensen | Sun News Daily

Share This:

Benson Boone is performing in the Burns Arena at Utah Tech University March 25.

Tickets went live Feb. 10, and the first batch was quick to sell out. Reserved seats were $25, general floor admission was $35 and prices went up to $75 for VIP meet and greet tickets. The second batch of student tickets are live Feb. 16 at noon. Non-student tickets will be on sale Feb. 26 at 10 a.m.

This concert is the stepping stone to allowing more, and bigger, artists to perform at Utah Tech. From the speed that tickets sold out, there is now data to support that a bigger concert would be successful on campus, which has a great deal of power in getting administration to invest in more live music on campus.

Student body president Devon Rice, a senior marketing major from Bountiful, has been pushing to have live music on campus, and said this concert is the perfect way to show how much students would invest to see an A-list artist on campus.

“This is a first to sell out the Burns Arena, and we did so in 12 hours,” Rice said. “The data that we are getting from this is that we can sell out a show in ease, so if we have to try hard to sell out a show for a bigger A-list artist, we can do that.”

Rice was able to get the ball rolling for this concert by coincidentally going to the movies with his girlfriend the same night Boone was also seeing a film.

“Meeting him at the movie theater was like the stars aligned,” Rice said.

Rice met Boone in December, and through reaching out to management and administration, the show was able to launch in February and be hosted in March.

Rice said: “I was just standing in line at the Megaplex with the missus, and she said, ‘That’s Benson Boone.’ So, we pulled him aside, and I told him who I was and what I wanted to do. I asked if he would be willing to play on campus, and he was super interested. It was a funny pipe dream at first, but we ended up being able to get him here.”

Utah Tech is only the host of this concert as Matthew Mizukawa, a local oral surgeon and owner of the non-profit Get Outside, bought the show. This is his second show to buy for students and the community to enjoy on Utah Tech campus. The profit that Mizukawa gains from this show will go toward benefiting his non-profit.

Tickets to the concert can be purchased here.