Will Ferrell has signed a contract to perform at K-State after Union Program Council members negotiated with his agent for more than three months.

Tickets for Ferrell's performance on Feb. 4, 2008, at Bramlage Coliseum go on sale for K-State students and the general public at 10 a.m. Monday at Bramlage and www.kstatesports.com. The Bramlage seating for the performance will accommodate 7,000 people.

The tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis. People can purchase up to four tickets, but K-State students must present a K-State ID at the performance.

K-State is Ferrell's first stop on his nationwide college comedy tour to promote his film "Semi-Pro," which has a Feb. 29 theatrical release date.

K-State was among seven universities selected for "Will Ferrell's Funny or Die Comedy Tour Presented by Semi-Pro." Amanda Stanford, UPC Entertainment Committee co-chair, said UPC received information from MainStage Productions this summer that Ferrell had plans for a college tour.

"We just immediately started pursuing it because we think he has a huge fan base here," said Stanford, senior in psychology. "When we saw this opportunity, we pretty much jumped at the opportunity."

Courtney Hauser, UPC Entertainment Committee co-chair; Ben Hopper, UPC program adviser; and Stanford put together a proposal in mid-September that showed what K-State offers compared to other universities to help bring Ferrell to K-State.

"We have to prove to them that we have the ability to publicize and the ability to bring the big crowd in," Hauser said.

Stanford said finding a mutual date for the performance was one challenge with securing the performance and the availability of Bramlage.

"The fact that this was right in the middle of basketball season was sort of difficult for us and going back and forth between Bramlage and Will's agent and trying to find a date that worked for both," Stanford said. "It was quite a task, but it worked out."

Stanford, Hauser and Hopper had a conference call with Ferrell's agent and a "middle agent" Monday when they confirmed his performance. The confirmation was like "dreams coming true," Hauser said.

"With what they were saying, we knew it was really happening," Hauser said. "I think the three of us really, really wanted this to happen, but we almost felt like it was unreal."

Ferrell, who is a "Saturday Night Live" alumnus, is not the first "SNL" cast member UPC brought to K-State. Al Franken, Tracy Morgan and Darrell Hammond have spoken at K-State in recent years.

Ferrell's comedy tour also will feature comedians Zach Galifianakis, Demetri Martin and Nick Swardson.

"These are people who have been featured on Comedy Central and various cameos in movies," Hauser said. "They're well enough known to where I think that they might draw their own fan base as well."

UPC Entertainment Committee budgets money for one popular comedian each semester, Hauser said.

"We kind of looked at our budget and thought, well, if we took bits and pieces of our budget for the fall and carried that over since he wouldn't be coming until February that we would have more saved," she said.

UPC will pay Ferrell a $200,000 flat fee for his appearance at K-State, Hauser and Stanford said.

"We worked backwards from the amount that we wanted to offer him in our proposal so that we could guarantee that we would be able to make enough," Hauser said.

Student privilege fees help fund UPC's budget along with self-generated events, the K?State Student Union and university administration, Hopper said.

A poll on UPC's Web site appeared earlier this semester and asked students how much they would pay to see Ferrell perform at K-State. Crawford said UPC members looked at the surveys when they calculated ticket prices.

"I think we kind of used those surveys as focus groups because we know that there aren't going to be 5,000 people that log in and do it," Crawford said. "It's probably going to be around 300, 400, 500 at best, and so we used that small number to kind of gauge what the mean would be in a bigger group."

Hauser and Stanford said they encourage students to purchase tickets as soon as they go on sale.

"I would say to try to buy them online," Hauser said, "or if you're worried about there being too many people buying all at once at 10 a.m., to show up before 10 a.m. to get in line at Bramlage."

In the two months that remain until Ferrell's performance, Hauser said UPC members plan to promote it with posters, Collegian advertisements, news coverage, the UPC Web site and Facebook.com.

"I think that we're all kind of predicting that this isn't going to take that much publicity," Hauser said. "I think that once people know what's going, word's going to spread. That was the goal - to make sure that we had tickets on sale in enough time before students went on break."

Stanford, Hauser and Hopper all said they are excited for Ferrell's performance.

"It's going to be one of the most exciting acts we've brought to K-State," Hauser said. "For the three of us, I think that it still hasn't really sunk in that all of the work that has been going on for the past three months that he will be here in February."