Booking a big act at State Farm Center is like a jigsaw puzzle, said director KEVIN ULLESTAD, in that it requires balancing the arena's open dates with tour schedules that may or may not include the Midwest.
It took three years — or more — to land Tom Petty, Garth Brooks and Kenny Chesney, who is making a "huge" return visit to Champaign in April, Ullestad said.
In this week's "Campus Conversation," Ullestad, who's been the arena's director since 1997, talked with staff writer Julie Wurth about the challenges of luring a major pop or rock tour to a secondary market, especially with consolidation of the music-promotion business.