Students lined up around and out the door of the Schine Student Center on Monday to purchase tickets for Snoop Dogg’s Block Party appearance, many unaware to the fact that his performance here is due to a cancellation at another university.

Snoop Dogg was originally booked to play at Harvard University that day, but his act was canceled after security needs could not be met. Harvard students had voiced discontent over Snoop Dogg’s lyrics, calling them threatening toward women.

The Department of Public Safety will employ the same safety provisions it usually uses for concerts in the Carrier Dome, said Lt. John Sardino, coordinator for special events. These include metal detector wands and a ban on backpacks.

Staffing will be appropriate to the event, Sardino said, though he would not release the number of officers that will be at the site due to security reasons. Syracuse police personnel will also be at the event, which is standard procedure, Sardino said.

‘We won’t have any extra precautions unless we hear about concerns,’ Sardino said. ‘I haven’t seen anything crop up yet as far as having any planned protests at Syracuse over Snoop Dogg’s lyrics.’

Harvard cancelled the concert after finding its Undergraduate Concert Board was unable to fund the cost of added security from the Boston Police Department.

Some SU students themselves are not concerned about safety breaches and doubt that SU will have the same issues that Harvard had.

‘No one is going to be upset because he’s a big name,’ said sophomore advertising major Katie Siff, who picked up two tickets on Monday morning. ‘People have more respect for what he did for the hip-hop industry than what his lyrics say.’

Sardino has been in contact with safety personnel at the last four venues Snoop Dogg has played at in Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago and Minneapolis, and has not heard of any safety breaches. He expects Block Party to go just as well.

Lisa Chad, a sophomore advertising major who purchased tickets on Monday, said the only reason why security might be increased would be if Snoop Dogg’s mangers thought riots or protests threatened the performer’s safety. The safety of students shouldn’t be a problem, she said.

‘If there are riots and protests, I don’t think it’s going to get violent,’ she said.

Nearly half of the 7,000 tickets were sold Monday, including all of the general admission tickets. Schine Box Office and the Carrier Dome Box Office will continue to sell the $10 student tickets for the upper levels, said Sarah Usher, the UU public relations director.

Tickets also went on sale on Monday on ticketmaster.com for $20. The Web site had been advertising the tickets since Thursday, despite the fact that Snoop’s contract had yet to be signed.

While the site had to know the logistics for the ticket sale, it was still supposed to wait until University Union had signed Snoop Dogg officially, said Sherlen Archibald, UU Concerts co-chair.

‘There was nothing that we could really do about it because by the time it was already up there, the contracts were getting signed right there and then,’ Archibald said.

The last-minute crunch was a residual effect of the debates and difficulties that pushed the Student Association’s spring semester allocations for all student organizations behind.

‘There was never a point where we doubted UU and their ability to find an artist,’ said SA president Travis Mason.

Both Mason and SA comptroller Andrew Urankar commended UU and the concert chairs for their hard work, while also noting that the scheduling and budget difficulties are struggles faced by every student organization.

‘I’m excited for the university that they’re able to put on an event, especially with an artist that everyone recognizes,’ Urankar said.

The scheduling difficulties indicate that SA and UU’s current work to adjust the budgeting and funding process is justified, Mason and Urankar said.

‘They currently need money faster than we can give it to them, so there’s inherently going to be a problem with that,’ Urankar said. ‘We just do our best to accommodate everyone, all organizations, large and small.’

Published on April 24, 2005 at 12:00 pm