Union Board alters Little 500 concert start time for women's race

The Sublime with Rome concert and Women’s Little 500 race are both scheduled for Friday night, April 20.

Junior Brad Domash, public relations and marketing director for Union Board, said the events should not overlap due to a new time change.

The women’s race will start at 7 p.m. with pre-race ceremony laps until the official start at 7:36 p.m., said Jordan Bailey, IU Student Foundation assistant director and Little 500 race coordinator.

“The race has averaged one hour and 12 minutes, so with the green flag going down at 7:36, it should be over by 8:38,” Bailey said. “It goes to show how exact and precise the pre-race activities are.”

Domash said planning for Little 500 concerts is very complicated due to the large scale of production.

“It takes a lot of coordination to plan for race week,” he said. “But we’re moving the concert time to 9:30 because we want to respect the tradition for students of this  legendary race.”

Planning for the concert began last semester and involved much communication between committees and artists’ agents about the budget and date of the show, Domash said.

“Planning started last semester with our previous concert director,” he said. “We look at what artists are feasible with our budget and decide with the students’ best interest  in mind.”

When sophomore Theta Phi Alpha rider Courtney Roessler was considering riding for the Women’s Little 500 race, she said she knew she would miss out on some Little 500 activities.

“I knew I’d miss out on getting to know the frat we’ll be paired with, but I’ll still have Friday night and Saturday,” she said. “I’ve heard some people still deciding to go to the women’s race because they’re not huge Sublime fans.”

Even though she knew she would have to miss out on some activities, Roessler said she would be disappointed if her favorite band was coming and she had to pick between the race and the concert.

“It’s not all the time your favorite artist comes to your college,” she said.

The time of the women’s race was moved three hours later than last year to 7 p.m. because it’s the 25th running of the Women’s Little 500, Bailey said.

Riders will have to arrive earlier than usual for special ceremonies.

“It is a team-to-team preference when to get to the track that day, but they tend to have a warm-up time to do some practice exchanges between 6 to 6:30, so riders could get there around 5 to 5:30.”

Bailey said planning for this year’s race began right after last year’s with evaluating what to improve.

A Women’s 25th Committee started meeting in August to plan for pre-race activities.

“The race starters will be the women riders who had a lot to do with starting the race in ’88,” Bailey said. “They will be the ones to announce, ‘Mount your Schwinn bikes.’ We’re just trying to make it as special as possible.”