The University of North Florida’s annual homecoming concert, OzFest, took place on February 3, and T-Pain and Flo Milli’s contracts show nearly $300,000 was spent on the featured performers.
Headliner T-Pain was paid $145,000, while Flo Milli was paid $5,000 more at $150,000.
This year, UNF significantly increased its investment in the artists, spending almost $100,000 more than last year’s three OzFest features combined, which cost $200,000. In 2022, UNF paid Don Toliver $165,000, and he was the only artist performing.
The contracts were signed by T-Pain’s manager and Flo Milli herself.
Maria Steadman, UNF’s director of student life, explained that while Student Government funds OzFest, the Office of Student Life is responsible for negotiating artist contracts.
“We put a bid out with our agent to the artist based on their price, and they either accept, deny or don’t even look at our bid … We just keep working until we find out who accepts and wants to do it,” explained Steadman. “It just depends on who’s available.”
Steadman said funding for events like OzFest comes from the Activity and Service Fee Budget. A&S fees are currently set at $10.18 per credit hour for students. According to the 2022/2023 Fiscal Year A&S Fee Budget, they were estimated to generate over $4.3 million this past year.
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Katie Vogel • Apr 15, 2024 at 5:47 pm
If students would like a say on how their A&S fees are spent, examples like the above give a great reason to get involved in Student Government and the Entertainment Committee. I think that it would be interesting to see an analysis done of what was spent by A&S for Oz Fest for the past few years, along with attendance numbers. Also, have they given the student body a way to vote on different choices of groups or entertainers?