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Chase Rice wins S.O.L.O. vote for Spring 2016

For the 2016 spring S.O.L.O. concert, ‘country music maverick’ and the currently nominated ACM New Male Vocalist of the year, Tennessee Tech students voted Chase Rice the No. 1 choice for the country music genre.

The concert will be held at the Hooper Eblen Center April 5 at 7 p.m.

Full-time students with an Eagle Card may collect two tickets beginning March 22 in the Student Government Association office. To attend the concert, guests must be either full-time students or at least 18 years of age with identification.

Any remaining tickets that are not collected by students will be sold online in a first-come, first-serve basis.

Bobby Adams, the president of SGA, thinks Chase Rice is going to perform a great show.

Rice’s music is a blend of electronic music, hip-hop and hard rock called “bro-country.” Other popular artists in the “bro-country” genre are Kenny Chesney, Allan Jackson and Brad Paisley.

 “You’re going to be mine and I’m going to be yours for an hour and a half. We’re going to be in each others’ face. If you don’t like that, walk out the door,” said Rice in a statement regarding his music on his website.

Adams said Chase Rice will be paid about $77,000 to perform at Tech for the S.O.L.O. concert.

In the past S.O.L.O. artists have been paid varying amounts to perform at Tech ranging from $45,000 to over $100,000.

Miranda Stoltz, SGA treasurer, said previous concerts have cost as much as $120,000. Full-time Tech students are charged an SGA fee of $20 as part of tuition fees. Part of this fee is used to pay for the semester’s S.O.L.O. concert. With the decrease in Tech’s enrollment, SGA received less funding from student fees than in previous years.

“Sometimes these smaller artists give a better concert because they know they aren’t big yet,” said Stoltz.

For the spring semester, SGA invited an artist with a lower fee because of Tech’s decreased enrollment.

“Enrollment for the university was down around $4 million. We had to come up with a new budget and a new set of artists,” said Stoltz.

While Rice is continuing to gain popularity, some students are already preparing their concert plans.

Sydney Chitwood, a student at Tech is already planning for the concert.

“I really like his music. I am going to get there early to be on the floor because I love him that much,” said Chitwood.