By Jennifer Nelson

Council for University Programming (CUP) concert chair Joshua Pratt is expecting a long line outside Matthew’s Arena today, as tickets go on sale for CUP’s first fall concert, featuring Busta Rhymes and Wyclef Jean.

“We’re expecting a big line,” Pratt said. “With only 5,000 seats and 14,000 Northeastern students … if students want to go to this concert they need to show up early.”

The Sept. 18 concert will be the largest scale concert ever to be held on Northeastern’s campus.

Planning for the concert began during the summer, when the Budget Review Committee allocated $250,000 to CUP’s Major Concert Fund, CUP President Allyson Savin said.

“With the planning we had to see who was available and in our price range and who would go well together in a concert,” Savin said. “We thought [Busta Rhymes and Wyclef Jean] would sound good together.”

The concert will serve to replace last year’s Springfest concert, which President Richard Freeland postponed in the wake of February’s Superbowl riots.

“This concert has really been in the works since last fall,” said CUP’s concert chair Joshua Pratt. “We really want this to be something the students can really enjoy.”

The $250,000 allocated for the fall concert is greater than the $195,000 allocated for the original Springfest concert, Savin said, although the entire amount will not go to paying for the performers.

“[The money] is broken up,” Savin said. “It doesn’t all go to pay for talent, a lot will pay for security.”

Security for the concert will be tight, especially after the events of last year, said Associate Director of Public Safety James Ferrier, but will remain similar to security plans from previous student concerts.

“We learn and we grow from each experience, so we may have tweaks here and there,” Ferrier said, “but generally it’s going to look and feel and seem like any other concert held in the area.”

Savin agreed, and said special attention must be paid to security precautions.

“We have got to be really cautious that we’re planning the safest possible concert ever,” Savin said. “The last thing we want to do is not plan well enough. We’d rather err on the side of caution.”

Both Pratt and Savin said attempts were made to get Ludacris, the artist scheduled for the original Springfest concert, back on the concert ticket, but that those attempts failed.

“Ludacris wanted to play another city before Boston the same night, and we didn’t want to take the chance of him not being able to get to Boston in time,” Savin said. “We don’t want to have another concert postponed.”

Pratt said he wasn’t too disappointed that Ludacris isn’t scheduled for the fall concert.

“We really feel the lineup we have now is much better than Ludacris to begin with,” he said.

Some students said they didn’t think replacing Ludacris was a bad idea.

“I heard Ludacris wouldn’t have been that good,” said freshman physical therapy major Nadine Deery. “But I’ll probably go to this one.”

Other students have yet to hear much about the concert.

“I hadn’t heard about it at all, but it sounds like fun,” said law student Robin Amiri. “My undergraduate school never had anyone big like that play, so this is much better than no one.”

Tickets for the concert are $5, and are only available to Northeastern students, Pratt said. A Northeastern ID is required for both purchasing tickets and entering the area on the day of the concert.