Limited seating and ticket prices that surpassed those of other schools didn't stop thousands of Jumbos from attempting to get tickets to the Entertainer himself, Billy Joel. The online distribution method used to determine who received tickets made a successful debut and might be used for future programs.
Nearly 1,000 requests for tickets were submitted during Monday night's online scramble, but after 44 seconds, 235 students had claimed all 470 tickets. The ticket purchase site, accessed through www.tuftslife.com, received approximately 3,300 log-on attempts before the lottery was shut down.
Despite the high demand for tickets, some students complained about the $35 price tag. Tufts students paid more for their chance to see the Piano Man than students seeing the same version of the show at other campuses.
University of Pennsylvania students are paying $5 per student for seats at Joel's Nov. 6 campus appearance. A representative of the UPenn Student Life office said that various funds allocated for Joel's performance defrayed the cost, giving students a more affordable ticket price. About 1,300 tickets to the Irvine Auditorium show and 300 for the concert's simulcast in Penn's Houston Hall were sold in an online lottery.
The estimated 600 tickets to Joel's performance tomorrow night at New York University (NYU) were sold for $12 a piece, and students were only allowed to purchase one ticket each. According to a representative of NYU's Program Office, the ticket price was determined by the university's Office of Student Life. The Office of Student Affairs will subsidize the cost of bringing Joel to NYU.
Georgetown students paid $25 each for more than 700 tickets to Joel's Nov. 11 appearance in Washington, DC. The event is being sponsored by the Georgetown Program Board and the Students of Georgetown, Incorporated.
In response to complaints about the $35 ticket price, Assistant Director of Student Activities Ed Cabellon said that the cost is inexpensive when compared to normal tour ticket prices for big-name performers like Joel. "In one sense I can see students saying that's nothing, and I can see other students saying that's expensive," he said.
"No matter how you slice it, Billy Joel himself will be at Tufts University," Cabellon said.
Although Northwestern University had been identified as another venue for Joel's campus tour series, Northwestern university officials and students say they have no information about a possible show.
Princeton University has also been considered as a possible stop along Joel's tour. "At this point, we don't have a signed contract with Mr. Joel," Princeton Assistant Dean Tom Dunne said yesterday.
Tufts is using the $15,000 allocated for the annual Fall Rap Show to help fund Joel's $35,000 performance. This left Concert Board and Office of Student Activities $20,000 short, which set the $35 student and $45 staff ticket prices. Excess revenue will cover the cost of the agent's services, lighting, sound, piano tuning, piano rental, and other miscellaneous expenses.
"We knew he wasn't going to take anything less, so that is what we bid for him," Cabellon said. "My understanding from what I was told by our agent is that this price was the same for all the schools."
But The Daily Pennsylvanian, UPenn's student newspaper, reported that UPenn had paid "significantly less" than Tufts to bring Joel to campus. Representatives of UPenn, NYU, and Georgetown declined to specify how much they were paying for the concerts.
Students who were able to purchase tickets Monday night will be assigned seats in the order in which their requests were submitted. Students will mostly be seated on the main floor of Cohen Auditorium, while staff members will watch the performance from the balcony.
Cabellon said that distributing tickets online was "the most fair and equitable process for this show, which is a unique situation because there are only 470 student seats." By avoiding the long lines and possible camp-outs, he said that students did not have to miss class or lose sleep trying to get tickets.
"[This] might be a model for the future such as Senior Week ticket sales," he said.
In the event that any tickets are left unclaimed, the Concert Board will hold a charity raffle on Nov. 11. It will be run through the Red Cross and will benefit the Massachusetts victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.
