Shakira arrives at Valley Children’s Stadium in just three days, and today, Aug. 4, students are being offered a free ticket to the concert with the purchase of a football season ticket, according to a student-wide email from Fresno State Athletics on Monday afternoon.
The deal is only for the first 250 ticket sales, and to qualify, students must use the Go Bulldogs website, purchase a $35 football season ticket and then fill out a separate form to confirm proof of purchase. The ticket purchase and additional form must be completed by tonight at 9 p.m. in order to be validated. All information can be found in every student’s Fresno State email.
The concert, scheduled for this Thursday, Aug. 7, hasn’t reached Athletic Director Garrett Klassy’s goal of a sold-out show, but in an interview with KSEE24 and CBS47, he said the concert is nearly 70% sold.
A look at the Ticketmaster website shows a realm of empty seats throughout the entire stadium with just over 72 hours until the show, but Klassy said tickets are being sold every day.
“We’re well over 20,000 at this point and over 500 tickets sold yesterday alone,” Klassy told KSEE24 and CBS47 on Aug. 1.
If those numbers are accurate, the concert will break the record for the largest single-night concert in Fresno. The record currently sits with Chukchansi Park’s Marca MP and Peso Pluma concert in 2023, with over 20,000 attendees.
On July 9, The Collegian’s editorial board published a story saying that Fresno State Athletics did a poor marketing job with the concert.
“The issue is that begging the students for money doesn’t look so great, especially when there is the entire Central Valley to target,” the editorial board wrote. “Instead of sending frequent emails to students and blasting the concert on Fresno State social media pages, athletics should be targeting other areas.”
And the marketing for the concert didn’t reach everyone. As of Friday, some people still had no idea Shakira was even coming.
“No, I didn’t. That’s the first time I’ve heard about it,” Fresno resident Dina said in an interview with KSEE24 and CBS47.
Ticket prices have also dropped since the original price, and the cheapest single ticket dropped 28.65% and is now $62.50, while the most expensive dropped 42.8% and is now $524.60.
Before, the cheapest ticket was $87.60 per ticket, and the most expensive was $917.15.
Reserved parking is available for event goers. There are two available lots: the Red/White lot, which costs $60, and the general lot that costs $40. The locations of each lot can be found here.
The parking lots will open at 5 p.m., and tailgating is not allowed. The general lot will have availability for rideshare programs. There will also be a shuttle system starting at 5 p.m. and running until an hour after the concert ends.
If athletics sells the 250 student football season tickets, the revenue generated will be approximately $8,750, whereas if 250 tickets were sold at the cheapest price of $62.50, the revenue would be approximately $15,625.
It is still unclear how much revenue will be generated from the event as a whole. However, Klassy said the event will go on, no matter what.
Production equipment, tents and trucks have already filled Parking Lot P26, and workers are in full swing to prepare Shakira’s runway.
Whether the concert is sold out or not, it will still make history as the first-ever concert at Valley Children’s Stadium, and Fresno State Athletics will be able to use this as a learning experience for future events to come.
