United Spirit Arena Competes for Lubbock Music

The music scene in Lubbock is constantly growing and fans may have even more to look forward to thanks to the attention the United Spirit Arena is getting as a music venue.

Cindy Harper, associate director of the United Spirit Arena, said that the venue has been fortunate to book high profile concerts because it is first and foremost a sports arena.

“Our priorities are basketball, volleyball as well as university events such as commencements, university day and things of that nature, and then concerts fall after that,” Harper said, “and our challenge with concerts is trying to find an opening in the calendar where a touring act is actually passing through.”

Harper also said that the success of the United Spirit Arena as a music venue can be attributed to outside efforts.

“We don’t have the ability to promote shows directly and put up the money to say ‘hey, so-and-so, can you come to Lubbock,’ so we work with promoters that actually can assume that risk,” Harper said. “They’re paying the artist fee so they take the gain if it does well but also the loss if it doesn’t. Being a university facility, we can’t assume that risk and the potential loss.”

Harper said the average top ticket price is 55 dollars and that ticket prices are determined by promoters and are outside the arena’s control.

“They have to calculate the guarantee that the artist is requiring and then they look at how many seats they have available to fill and come up with their pricing from that,” Harper said.

Ticket prices and higher priorities set this venue apart from many in Lubbock,  Harper said, but still believed the United Spirit Arena to be a part of the music scene in Lubbock.

“Hopefully we do offer an integral role in the music scene,” Harper said, “but maybe a different dimension.”

In-house promoter for Bash Riprocks, Allen Brown, disagreed, however, saying traditional music venues fared better in Lubbock.

“It’s an arena. I’ve never associated arenas with the music scene, for me that’s more clubs, bars, venues,” Brown said. “Arenas are really just commercial areas for anything from music shows to arts and crafts symposiums, so I really don’t consider them to be part of the music scene necessarily.”

Brown said that it is exciting to see the United Spirit Arena bring bigger bands to Lubbock, however, and believes it means more bands will come.

“More promoters want to send their bands to Lubbock because they see who we bring,” Brown said.

Brown said he also tries to boost the appeal of the local music scene by not charging covers and by booking various bands.

“To bring in a band, say like Neon Indian, that somebody may not know who they are, even though they are hugely popular, it helps to be free so people don’t feel like they don’t want to spend 10 dollars on a band they don’t know,” he said. “So I think it exposes more people to more different kinds of music.”

Harper says the United Spirit Arena has similar interests.

“Just being able to provide a variety of entertainment and learning opportunities to the student body is really great,” Harper said. “We try to provide a diverse array of different acts to attract the student body and give them something to do.”