Big Sean comes to rock the Sun Dome for the Homecoming After Party on Friday evening.
SPECIAL TO THE ORACLE

Students looking forward to Friday’s Homecoming After Party may want to check if they reserved their tickets to see rapper Big Sean.

Though tickets are free for students and still available, USF has changed how the After Party will be organized. The university has implemented a ticketing policy for the event and moved the concert inside the Sun Dome for the first time.

Though the event did not require tickets in previous years, the event will be ticketed for two reasons, according to Richard Scibetti, coordinator for the Center for Student Involvement. 

Since the event was moved inside the Sun Dome this year, the first reason is to work with the Sun Dome to ensure the event doesn’t go over its more than 7,000 seats available for the concert. The other reason is to use this year as a test run to see if homecoming events such as this can be ticketed in future years.

“Hopefully, students enjoy the change and continue to claim their tickets,” Scibetti said.

Tickets, available through Ticketmaster or homecoming.usf.edu, are free for USF students, and each student is permitted to purchase one additional guest ticket for $10. A limited number of tickets are also available to the public for $25 each, and students must print out their tickets and bring them to the concert.

The concert is already over half capacity, with more than 4,000 people registered to attend — a group composed almost entirely of students so far, Scibetti said.

He also said all money from the event will be used to compensate the cost of the event, which includes Big Sean’s $100,000 performance contract. Any money made will be returned to Student Government’s unallocated interim account.

Also different is this year’s Homecoming Carnival, which will only take place Thursday and Friday, ending right before the Homecoming Parade. Scibetti said the decision to change the times of the carnival, which starts Thursday at 4 p.m. and goes until midnight and starts again Friday at noon in the Sun Dome parking lot, was to help focus the community to one event at a time, rather than having the carnival overlap with the parade and the concert. 

Doors to the concert open at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, following the Homecoming Parade, which begins at 6:45 p.m. on Holly Drive, continues onto Maple Drive and then Alumni Drive outside the Sun Dome.

Homecoming Week concludes Saturday with the football game against Syracuse at 3:30 p.m. in Raymond James Stadium.