The Rolling Stones show tonight at Georgia Tech's Bobby Dodd Stadium "will be the first concert in the 102-year-old venue" since '94, and it "may also be the start of a regular occurrence," according to Ken Sugiura of the ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION. Tonight's concert is "expected to bring in at least $250,000, not small change for an athletic department that aims to break even each fiscal year and this year will take on the additional expense of cost-of-attendance stipends, expected to be a $500,000 item on the budget." Former GT Senior Associate AD Ryan Bamford before leaving to become UMass AD said, “I think from a financial standpoint, it’ll work. It’s just a matter of, Can the stadium withstand it and then, Does it fit within a timeline that Georgia Tech’s happy with?” Sugiura noted the concert window "opens with the end of classes and closes early enough in the summer that the stadium field can be re-sodded in advance of preseason practice if it is damaged during a concert." Bamford: "I don’t know if they’ll do one every year, but I think there’ll be opportunities, because I think our staff is going to knock it out of the park on this one. I think they’re really going to present a great show" (AJC.com, 6/8).
