Students enjoy electronic music at the SUBOG winter concert in February. (Jason Jiang/The Daily Campus)
On Monday afternoon, the University of Connecticut Student Union Board of Governors (SUBOG) announced in an Instagram post, signed by SUBOG President Joseph Rosa, that tickets for the Spring Concert featuring Fetty Wap will be available starting March 22nd through an online lottery system.
Tickets were supposed to go on sale March 3rd, but sales were cancelled and rescheduled due to an issue with SUBOG’s third party ticket system.
Following the third party system crash, SUBOG has been working with the Department of Student Activities, Student Affairs Information Techonology (SAIT), University Information Technology Services (UITS) and other campus partners to determine the best option for selling tickets, according to the post.
The lottery will be open from March 22nd through March 24th at 11:59 p.m. The lottery will close and will not accept any new entries after this three-day period has passed.
A link to the system will be posted on SUBOG’s Instagram (@SUBOGatUCONN), Twitter (@SUBOGatUCONN), SUBOG’s Facebook event for the Spring Concert and on the SUBOG website. Students must enter their name in the lottery for a chance to purchase tickets, according to the post.
“When filling out the lottery form, you will be asked what type of tickets you are interested in purchasing and how many tickets you would like to purchase,” the post said. “The selections you make on the lottery form will determine the location, quantity and type of ticket(s) you are allocated if you name is randomly selected in the lottery.”
The lottery will be conducted during the week of March 28th, and students who win the lottery will be notified via email from SUBOG. According to the post, purchase and pick-up information will be as follows:
Chosen for Floor Tickets: Visit Student Activities – Programs Office (SU 307) between April 4th and 5th to purchase
Chosen for Lower Bowl, Reserved Tickets (Sections 104-114): Visit Student Activities – Programs Office (SU 307) between April 6th and 7th to purchase
Chosen for Upper Bowl, Reserved Tickets (Sections 204-214): Visit Student Activities – Programs Office (SU 307) on April 9thh, or between April 11th and 12th to purchase
The Student Activities – Programs Office is open for sales between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. for each day. Tickets will only be held for the specific purchase time frame, and cannot be purchased after the time frame has passed, according to the post.
“For example, students who were assigned floor tickets but did not purchase them by 8 p.m. on Tuesday, April 5th will no longer be able to purchase those tickets,” the post said.
Entry into the lottery is restricted to Storrs undergraduate students only, and while students can ask for multiple tickets on their submission form, only one submission is allowed per student.
At the time of this publication, SUBOG’s Instagram post received over 150 likes and almost 200 comments just two hours after posting. Many students tagged their friends, and comments were mainly out of anger rather than support for the decision.
SUBOG commented a clarification on the post, stating, “No other UConn branches pay the student fee to fund SUBOG events. Only UConn Storrs students pay the Student Activity fee and that is why the ticket purchasing is limited to Storrs students only. This has always been the policy with SUBOG concerts.”
Though SUBOG’s post said this decision was the “best course of action (to) ensure a fair and successful sale,” several students commented about the unfairness of this policy, as well as the unfairness of the lottery system in general.
Laura Carey, an eighth-semester mathematics-statistics major, voiced her concern for the system, saying she is worried that she and her friends might not be able to attend their last concert before graduating.
“I have missed opportunities to attend the Spring Concert in the past, and I was looking forward to attending this year’s concert,” Carey said. “But I have little hope that everyone in my friend group will successfully win the lottery and get a ticket, so I’m really bummed.”
Carey commented on the fact that many students “scalp” tickets, meaning they buy them and turn them over for a profit.
“Students have been scalping tickets to spring concerts, so if my friends win and I don’t win, we will miss out on the opportunity to attend our last Spring Concert because of the steep cost of (scalped) tickets,” Carey said.
Carey said while the student body did ask for a lottery system, they asked for a lottery that reflects the way UConn’s basketball system is run, which is based on seniority. She said if they can’t replicate that system, they should at least find a way to eliminate ticket scalping.
While many students displayed concern and anger, students like Mary Olmsted, a sixth-semester communications major, showed support of SUBOG and their decision.
“We all need to remember that SUBOG is a student-run organization and they are doing what they can and what is best for the student body here at UConn,” Olmsted said.
Olmsted said she things SUBOG’s resolution to the ticket issue is great, stating that a lottery system gives everyone an equal chance to purchase tickets.
“I am upset that many students are so angry about this, when everybody should be happy that we even have a Spring Concert,” Olmsted said. “When everything runs smoothly no one has any issue, but when there is one hiccup, students start saying very mean things to SUBOG.”
SUBOG ended the post by thanking the student body for their “patience and support throughout this process.” The Spring Concert featuring Fetty Wap is still scheduled to perform at Gampel Pavilion on Thursday, April 14th.
Molly Stadnicki is a staff writer for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at molly.stadnicki@uconn.edu. She tweets @molly_stadnicki.