Students blame ticket system for tepid crowd

Megan Finnerty
Asst. Campus Editor

Some students who attended the Smashing Pumpkins concert on April 16 at Elliott Hall of Music, have pointed to the way that tickets are sold to students as the reason for the lukewarm crowd at the show.

Brian Rowe, a senior in Schools of Engineering, said the crowd hit a low point when James Iha, the Pumpkins' lead guitarist, asked the audience to dance and almost no one responded.

"That was pathetic," Rowe said. "And all through the first couple of songs, no one sang along. When the audience is good, the performance is good. It's symbiosis; one feeds off the other."

"A lot of people just stood there and stared at the band," said Cara Simaga, a junior in the School of Science. "I was really disappointed that there were people who didn’t even clap; no one even seemed to get excited when they played familiar songs. But I was very impressed with the band."

Laura Clavio, productions and sales assistant for Purdue Convocations and faculty adviser to the Student Concert Committee, said the crowd at the Pumpkins show was not a result of ticket sales methods.

She said she feels that because the Pumpkins required Convocations to put half the tickets on sale through Ticketmaster, it was hard for students who did not draw early ticket times to get good seats through the lottery. However, Ticketmaster also employs a lottery system to sell tickets to people in line on sale day.

"The reason for the lottery system is that the University will not allow students to camp out in long lines for ticket sales," she said. "This system was established about 20 years ago and has been the model used for many universities around the country. It is about as fair a system as can be devised."

But in an attempt to create a system with a different type of fairness, where the most enthusiastic fans have access to the best seats, some students have proposed that Purdue return to first—come, first—served ticket sales. This system, theoretically, would enable those who are willing to wait in line to get the best tickets.

Another proposed solution would be to sell the tickets on a general admission basis. This means that students would not purchase a specific seat, rather, they would line up in front of the venue before a show to claim the best seats.

"First—come, first—served ticket buying would be the best, or do general admission so that the people who arrive first, get in first," Tim Kearney, former head of promotions for the Student Concert Committee, said. "It's not like you are going to camp out to get inside Elliott for days; people would just come a few hours earlier."

Rowe brings up the main argument against ending the current lottery system. It is feared that students would camp out for days in front of the ticket windows to get the best seats. Kearney said that he was told one of the reasons Purdue switched to the lottery system was because students in the past would camp out and urinate on Elliott when they didn't want to get out of line.

"I think people are afraid that students might be there for three or five days and they would be drinking, littering, arguing and getting rowdy," he said. "I've heard of many stories where people are in lines waiting and a few people get in an argument and things get out of control."

Clavio and the Student Concert Committee are not giving up on finding a better way to serve Purdue students. Another option they've pursued is first—come, first—served ticket time registration on SSINFO. However, officials at SSINFO fear that too many students trying to log onto the system at once will cause it to crash. So, until a system is created that could handle the influx of people signing on, the current lottery system will stay in place.