Students displeased with homecoming dance ticket sales

By Sienna Ericsson,
BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

As students began to arrive at the school dance during the given start time for ticket-selling, they found a massive line already wrapped around the gym waiting for them due to the unexpected number of people attending.

Wanting to get there early, some students had showed up between 7:30 to 8 p.m. However, not everybody would get in until around 11 p.m. that night, giving some students only 30 minutes of the scheduled two hours to dance, and the majority still less than those two hours promised.

Two administrators sat at a fold-out table inside the entrance of the gym with a laptop each, one checking students’ IDs and taking the 15 dollars needed for a ticket and the other checking students who had already purchased them.

One group of attendees said it seemed like they were not even selling tickets for “a solid half an hour at a time” and speculated that there might have been a hold up due to staff wanting to protect their newly-polished gym.

Although the line did only move a few feet every 10 minutes, this could have just been an illusion due to a large number of students entering the gym at once and then waiting. This would block the door until the majority of those students had purchased their tickets and then entered the dance itself.

Many were confused as to why there was only one person assigned to each line, seeing as to get through the hundreds of students that had arrived would– and did– take almost the whole night.

In the meantime, the students waiting outside started taking off their shoes and sitting on the ground to make themselves more comfortable. Some wrapped themselves in blankets and others stood shivering as they had not anticipated the long and cold wait.

A few groups of students even tried to entertain themselves by watching Netflix or playing cards, but found that it didn’t block out the cold or their aching legs for long. Many complained that they would even be too tired to dance by the time they got inside.

The students who were in the line to purchase tickets were still grateful that they could still go to the dance, as the news that tickets had sold out on Thursday had shocked them and left many of their dates and friend groups devastated that they would not be coming.

This in itself was another issue, however, as most of the students who had not been able to obtain a ticket had in fact been waiting in line during lunch days before but had run out of time before they got the chance to purchase one.

“Since we were told we had to use the South gym, we knew there was a max capacity, unfortunately. We always hope everyone can go but when there’s a limit not everyone can,” junior and dance committee head Carina Fettinger said.

Many students hope there will be more people managing ticket sales and more days to buy tickets for a faster line next time.

“If the tickets had been unlimited, they could have still sold them after school on Friday,” senior Ilayda Agar said.

But due to the current stock of two machines that are capable of selling tickets, only two people at a time are able to manage it.

While noting that this was an unusual turnout for selling tickets at the door, Fettinger makes the point that it would be better to be prepared for later on.

“Hopefully [the administration] can purchase more [ticket machines] in the future,” Fettinger said.

Students argue that an additional 30 minutes should have been extended to make up for the lost time waiting in line, as a large amount of students had missed at least the first half of the dance, if not more. However, Student Government started letting people in at 9 p.m., and most dances are kept under two and a half hours as a three hour dance would be too long.

“If people had gotten tickets earlier in the week they could have been at the whole dance rather than wait for tickets. But [I] completely understand that it’s a bummer to miss part of the dance. Hopefully everyone had a great time and really enjoyed the night!” Fettinger said.