Phillip Phillips told St. Thomas STAR officials that he’s canceling the remainder of his spring concert tour including a performance that was scheduled for Saturday on the John P. Monahan Plaza.
STAR Large Events Intern Jimmy Froehling said the concert was canceled due to Phillips’ poor health.
“We actually found out basically just this morning,” Froehling said. “It’s definitely a little sad, but you know you’ve got to go with it, and we hope that he gets better.”
Phillips was set to perform at 7 p.m. Saturday in what would have been the first large concert ever held on the plaza. Instead, Froehling said that because of the short notice, STAR will be canceling the event altogether.
Froehling said St. Thomas won’t be affected financially by the cancellation.
Sophomore Kathleen Connolly said she hopes STAR will use the funds they save from Phillips’ show for next fall’s concert.
“I expect them to do better next year,” Connolly said. “The fall concert is usually pretty good but with those funds they could get someone that could compete with what the U of M puts on for homecoming.”
Junior Brianna Odegaard said although she wasn’t thrilled with STAR choosing Phillips in the first place, the cancellation is still disappointing.
“I’m disappointed that he cannot be here and I wish they would have picked someone better in the first place,” Odegaard said.
Sophomore Andrew Ring said he was not planning to go to the concert in the first place.
“The fact that it’s cancelled doesn’t affect me because I wasn’t going to go, but it suck(s) for the people looking forward to it,” Ring said.
Anne Becken, Alex Goering and Heidi Enninga contributed to this report.
I feel really bad for the graduating class this year who is not going to have any final concert/event. STAR should try harder to put something together instead of just canceling the event right away.
Quick someone call Prince. Maybe he has some down time and is hanging around the cities.
I agree Sara! We pay and activity fee each year to be able to attend these events so it would be nice if they could even get a local DJ and some good food and throw a summer barbeque or something fun!
It is unfortunate that Phillip Phillips got cancelled, but it is not STAR’s fault. They put a ton of work into putting on this concert, and are just as disappointed that it is no longer happening. There are a lot of rules and regulations surrounding an event like this. That is why they cannot simply replace the concert with another event. There may not be a concert anymore but there is another event. It’s called Vingo, and they are giving away a ton of prizes and cash, including a couple of ipad minis.