UPDATED: 8:22 p.m.

Billy Joel will perform at the Carrier Dome for a record setting seventh time on March 20, 2015.

The concert was announced at a press conference Monday morning in the Club 44 lounge in the Carrier Dome. The show is presented by AEG Live, the live-entertainment division of the Los Angeles-based AEG.

Pete Sala, managing director of the Carrier Dome, said 38,242 tickets will be made available for the show, and said he believes it will sell out. Tickets go on sale Saturday at 9 a.m. through Ticketmaster and the Carrier Dome Box Office. Tickets will be priced at $59.50 and $89.50 before fees.

The March date will be Joel’s only scheduled show in New York state in 2015 outside of his monthly performances at Madison Square Garden. He last performed at the Carrier Dome in 2006. His show next year will be his seventh in the Dome, which will set a record for concerts by a single performer there.

Some of Joel’s most well-known songs include “Piano Man,” “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” “Only the Good Die Young” and “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me.”

In addition to his past performances in the Carrier Dome, Joel has ties to Syracuse University. In 2006, the singer made a $320,000 donation to the Setnor School of Music. That same year, he received an honorary doctorate from SU and was the university’s commencement speaker.

“I feel he feels that he is much more connected in really meaningful, substantive ways to Syracuse University as a result of those things,” said Ann Clarke, dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts. “He’s clearly connected to Madison Square Garden and other venues but this is a music venue where he gave back to education.”

Sala, the managing director of the Carrier Dome, added that the stage will be set up where the basketball court typically is, and will face east, similar to the set up for events like Block Party.

The concert was in the works for “a good eight–10 months,” Sala said. He added that he believes next March’s show will be the biggest he’s seen in his 33 years at the Dome.

“To me it’s the biggest because we’re setting a record, and we’re going to hoist a banner with Billy’s name on it to hang in the Dome, and that’s neat,” Sala said. “This is a big event for the community and the city and the university.”

A theme throughout the press conference was that Joel wanted to come back and play another show at the Dome. Debra Rathwell, senior vice president of AEG, said in an interview that Joel’s schedule allows him to be selective about where to perform.

“Billy is on tour but it’s a very different kind of tour,” she said. “He’s not rolling across the country five nights a week.”

Rathwell said Joel plays a show at Madison Square Garden once a month, and then is able to add a couple other shows each month. Playing at the Carrier Dome for a seventh time was something that interested him, and so he will return in March, she said.

“He’s at a point in his life where he wants to do milestone things,” Rathwell said. “He wants to do record-breaking, interesting things that he feels partial or attached to.”

Published on December 1, 2014 at 11:56 am

Contact Brett: blsamuel@syr.edu | @Brett_Samuels27