Vucurevich Foundation Lecture Series Sells Out In Record Time

RAPID CITY, SD (August 26, 2015) — Since 1993, the John T. Vucurevich Foundation has sponsored a speaking event called “An Evening With…”, this annual event has hosted speakers both on the national and international level who share these commonalities:  a vision for the future, promoting understanding and awareness of the world and are an inspiration to many.  As the Vucurevich Foundation’s gift to the community, the Foundation strives to set the ticket prices at a nominal fee, only covering a small portion of their costs.

Both the Civic Center and the Foundation are thrilled by the support of this year's lecturer, Neil deGrasse Tyson.  In twenty-three years of hosting this event, we have never sold out this quickly.  We recognize that there were a great number of people who were not able to obtain tickets and we have fielded a number of requests to change venues and/or add another lecture.

While moving the lecture to a larger venue would allow more attendees, unfortunately, it is not possible.  Both the Barnett Arena and Ice Arena are booked for that time frame.   Due to extreme interest in attending Dr. Tyson’s lecture, the Foundation did explore the option of adding an additional lecture, however, Neil deGrasse Tyson’s schedule is booked months in advance and he is unavailable.

The Foundation has worked hard over these last twenty-three years to make this speaker series accessible to everyone.  The method that has best served this idea has been to make tickets on-sale to everyone at the same time whether in person, on the phone or internet.  Since the advent of online ticket sales, we have continued to see substantial growth in the number of tickets purchased online and/or with a mobile device to the point that it is becoming the primary choice of our patrons.  While we know there was some speculation that “scalpers” had purchased all of the tickets that fortunately is not the case.  After much research, it’s evident that the tickets listed on these sites are very likely not valid and it should be noted that some were trying to sell tickets prior to the event going on sale.  As always we strongly discourage the purchase of tickets to any event in our facility from third-party websites.  We only recognize tickets purchased directly off of www.gotmine.com.