As spring emerges from the icy New England winter and the spring semester comes to a close, the Northeastern student body looks forward to one thing: Springfest. The concert, bringing in huge names like last year’s headliner, Drake, is an event known not only to the Northeastern community, but college students everywhere who will travel from other schools to attend the event. Wiz Khalifa, Third Eye Blind, Taking Back Sunday, Mac Miller and Northeastern DJ Ridin’ Qwerty, are set to play Matthews Arena Saturday, April 9.
When Northeastern’s Council for University Programs (CUP) announced this year’s headliners on the evening of March 16, there was an immediate technological uproar via the Facebook event page criticizing the members of CUP on the lineup. The miscellaneous genres of the performers shocked many students – mixing hip hop, pop, punk and alternative rock – who made their disapproval of the mix quite clear. There were many who expressed that they intended to “only go for Wiz” or “leave after Third Eye Blind,” but there was still a significant interest in attending the event.
As Tuesday, March 22 came around, students were anxiously waiting for 9 p.m. to strike so they could secure their Springfest tickets. I signed into myNEU at 8:57 p.m. and entered myTickets only to be placed in a 2000-person “virtual waiting room.” I was taken aback by the large number of people “in front” of me, but I waited it out. I watched my number descend, and about ten minutes later I arrived at number 12. Suddenly, I jumped from 12 to approximately 3,800. You can guess what my reaction was.
I decided to try and wait it out again. After about 30 or 40 minutes, I got down to number one, had my fingers crossed and “Eye of the Tiger” in the background, and then: BOOM – back to 4,000. At that point, I turned to the Facebook event page and there were loads of posts from students complaining about the same problem. Again, I waited for about an hour and eventually got into myTickets, finding no available student or guest tickets. Even as I write this in the Stetson West dining hall, two students at the table next to me are discussing their own distress over spending three hours on myTickets.
At that point, the Springfest Facebook page was infested with student “scalpers,” selling student and guest tickets for double, triple, even quadruple the normal prices. One can find postings on Craigslist.org for tickets priced at approximately $90. Some students who were miraculously able to purchase tickets were forced to buy those designated for guests, priced at $22 – $10 more than the student’s fare.
As there has been no explanation issued to the student body from any source of authority for this event, I took to my Twitter account to address the problem. Northeastern CUP replied to me, “I am truly sorry to you and all of northeastern. The ticketing system is out of our control.” But the question still remains: Who is responsible for this enormous error, and will those who were cheated out of Springfest tickets receive them or be compensated in some way. The failed system desperately needs revision for next year, and we, the students, want an apology.
– Afton Thomas is a first-year communications major.
Correction: A previous version of this letter stated that Afton Thomas was a third-year pharmacy major.
