News: ArtPower’s 22nd season at UC San Diego follows record-setting year

San Diego Union Tribune
By George Varga
June 23, 2025

UC San Diego’s ArtPower is heading into its 22nd season this fall with momentum to spare.

Its highly eclectic 2025-26 lineup features everyone from South Africa’s Soweto Gospel Choir and award-winning author Anne Lamott to comedian Reggie Watts, the Isidore String Quartet, and such jazz dynamos as trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis and drummers Nate Smith and Makaya McCraven.

The roster also includes the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble, the San Francisco dance troupe La Mezcla, genre-blurring music maverick Meshell Ndegeocello and Bang On A Can All-Stars, which will be making its first ArtPower appearance since 2015. Tickets go on sale today at 10 a.m. at artpower.ucsd.edu and will include five new $100 “combo” package options that each include four different concerts.

The upcoming lineup of 32 events between Sept. 23 and May 30 is notable for its wide-ranging stylistic diversity, long one of ArtPower’s defining characteristics.

The bar is set even higher this time around by the fact that the nonprofit arts organization’s just-concluded 2024-25 season set multiple records.

“We more than doubled our ticket sales from the 2023-24 season, from just over 22,000 to around 45,000 tickets this year,” said Colleen Kollar Smith, who in July 2022 was named executive director of UCSD’s newly created Campus Performance and Events Office.

“In terms of our revenues,” she added, “we saw a 56% increase over (the 2023-24 season) to 88.5%.”

That amount of growth is impressive for any cultural arts organization, let alone one in a market as competitive as San Diego.

The campus where ArtPower presents nearly all of its events is in very close proximity to the venues operated by La Jolla Music Society and La Jolla Athenaeum. There are also nearby performing arts centers in Poway and Escondido to the north and a panoply of other venues in and around downtown San Diego and in East County.

“First and foremost, I would credit our success to the diversity of programming we have and to the fact we have really accessible ticket prices,” said Kollar Smith, who was previously the executive producer of Moonlight Stage Productions in Vista.

“And we’ve worked really hard in where and how we’re marketing our events. We’re using social media, influencers and media partners to grow our audience, on campus and off.”

Free student tickets

There are at least two other factors that help account for the increased attendance.

This was the second consecutive season in which ArtPower offered free tickets to UCSD students — and the third year it held concerts and other events at the $70 million Epstein Family Amphitheater.

The 2,650-seat venue, which opened in late 2022, has hosted concerts by a broad array of artists that ranges from Anoushka Shankar, the San Diego Symphony, Antonio Sanchez and Manhattan Transfer to Oumou Sangaré, Gregory Porter, King Britt and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer George Clinton.

Moreover, the number of free student tickets that were made available increased by 61%, Kollar Smith said, from 4,000 in the 2023-24 season to 6,500 for the season concluding today.

“It’s all about communications from our team to ensure students know the availability is there and that the tickets are always free for them,” said Campus Performance and Events Office Associate Director of Artistic Planning & Outreach Liz Bradshaw.

“Another thing is the programing we do at the amphitheater, which plays a massive role in attracting students — not just to performances but to the weekly Tuesday farmers market and other events. For us it’s important to keep the amphitheater active throughout the school year, as weather allows. The more that space is activated, the more students know to look for what’s happening.”

Kollar Smith agreed, adding: “ArtPower is a portion of what our Campus Performance and Events Office does. But we are serving tens of thousands more through the farmers market, our Asian Night market, Triton Fest, our annual Sun God Festival, and different speakers, concerts and movies that are specifically for students. We do about 40 events a year at the Epstein.”

Summer series returns

Not coincidentally, this will be the third consecutive summer that ArtPower presents a summer series at the amphitheater. The full schedule is available at artpower.ucsd.edu/events.

It opens July 9 with a sing-along screening of the film “Wicked,” which will be followed by two dozen more events. No fewer than 16 of those are karaoke nights.

The rest are film screenings and concerts by such disparate bands as Yachtley Crew, La Lom and The Cream of Clapton, a tribute band that features Noah East, the son of longtime Eric Clapton bassist (and UCSD alum) Nathan East. The elder East and his son, who recently released their first duo album, will open the concert.

“And Nathan East will do a few songs with Noah during The Cream of Clapton’s set,” Bradshaw said. “They played for us at the amphitheater last year as well.”

Team work

Kollar Smith, Bradshaw and Campus Performance and Events Office Assistant Director of Artistic Planning & Outreach Albert Agbayani have now collaborated for three years on ArtPower. They coordinate closely with Associate Director of Marketing & Communications Joanna Christian.

“We have figured out a rhythm and a system to collectively work together,” Kollar Smith said. “My hope has always been to lean into everyone’s unique skills. Joanna is also a key part of that and of how we’ve been able to integrate the different genres we present and grow our audiences. The growth we’ve seen is a reflection of that collaboration and teamwork.”

“All three of us have ongoing conversations,” said Agbayani, “and are allied on programming. I lean more into jazz and Liz leans more into dance, but we all meet every week to strategize, plan and sus things out.”

After working for ArtPower from 2008 to 2012, Bradshaw returned three years ago. This year marks the 10th anniversary for Christian, whose ArtPower tenure began in 2015.

“The consistency we have had all along at ArtPower is our commitment to bringing world-class artists and rising stars to our stages,” Christian said.

“We are continuing to do that, but on a bigger level. And I think students are a little more adventurous now in their tastes. We see this in the increased number of students coming out to ArtPower events. Global music and jazz are really popular with them, but it’s our bigger shows at the amphitheater that draw a lot of students. And with the free tickets, students are able to take a risk and try something new.”

Belt-tightening

ArtPower’s budget last season was $2.5 million. With major belt-tightening now taking place across the UC system, Kollar Smith and her team are striving to cut back on production expenses for the coming season.

“We are, along with all of our campus partners, feeling the impact of campuswide budgets cuts, as you can imagine,” she said. “We are looking to sustain the growth we’ve seen in ticket sales, while also strategically looking at expenses and our budget to pull back where we can. Like our arts partners in the community, we hope to grow our ticket sales and donations.”

It is largely because of the generosity of donors that ArtPower can offer free tickets to students for all its presentations. But the largesse of its supporters isn’t limited to underwriting free tickets.

“Our donors are critical. They are the lifeblood of any work we do,” Kollar Smith stressed. “The arts are important to everyone’s lives and help students to develop empathy, problem-solving skills and a sense of belonging. And more and more, we know that not just students but every member of our community is looking for that sense of belonging.

“That is exactly why we want to keep ticket prices accessible and provide experiences in as many genres as possible. Our donors’ support makes that possible, as does every ticket purchased for any of our events.”

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