The campus has been graced by the presence of Al Gore, Bill Bradley, Colin Powell, Billy Joel, and now Bill Clinton. Tufts University will once again bring a huge name to come and speak. One would think there would be tremendous excitement and anticipation for this special event. After all, Bill Clinton is not only one of our greatest former presidents, but is a tremendously dynamic and charismatic speaker as well.
However, the majority of Tufts students don't really care. Why not? Because if the administration uses the same method of ticketing as they have with the previous speakers, students know that they will have virtually no chance of getting in.
When Al Gore and Bill Bradley paid visits, just a handful of tickets were available to the regular undergraduates; most of which were impossible to get. For Gore, students had to be recommended by their professors. The rest of Cabot Auditorium was filled with Fletcher Students, administration, and rich alumni.
When Billy Joel came, there was tremendous demand for tickets, and the concert was to be held in Cohen Auditorium. The tickets were distributed using a ridiculous, overworked, inefficient, unfair online request system. Only 400 students of the 2,500-plus who wanted seats got to go. Those who didn't win the rigged computer lottery were forced to pay upwards of $100 a ticket from the Tufts students turned scalpers.
So let us use these past debacles as a mandate to revise the ticketing system. We need a distribution method that actually looks out for the students (yeah the ones who pay the insane tuition to come here). Here are some suggestions.
First of all, enough with Cohen Auditorium. Now I know how cozy and sweet it is, but truly what is so great about it? The acoustics? I don't think so. When there is high demand to see a certain speaker, let's hold the event in Tufts' BIGGEST arena, the Gantcher Center. It's new, it's big, the bathrooms are luxurious, and it can hold twice as many people as Cohen. Why turn people who want to go away?
Also, we must get rid of the computerized lottery and the teacher recommendation methods. The best way to give out tickets is to distribute them first come, first serve, with a regular, ordinary, old LINE. Announce the time, place, and how many seats are going to be available, and give the tickets out in the order of the people in line.
Let's say the Billy Joel tickets were given out first come, first serve at the campus center, rather than through the online lottery. With the tremendous demand for seats, the line would've formed the day before, causing a good portion of the student body to camp out at the campus center. In fact, this distribution method is used frequently around the nation at other universities whose students view the "camp out" as a huge social gathering and party opportunity. Also with the line method, the most adamant fans (at the front of the line) would prove themselves worthy and get the tickets through hardship, not because they have the fastest Internet connection. And at least those students who waited on the line and didn't get tickets would have still gained a memorable life experience.
One last suggestion would be to broadcast the speech/performance in another location. Rather than limiting the viewing to the live audience, why not set up a screen somewhere else on campus and on TUTV so that all of Tufts can participate in the event. I'm sure people who can't get tickets would still like to see the show in some capacity.
Now Bill Clinton is coming and the powers that be will probably conjure up another complicated, unfair ticketing method that just minimizes the number of students involved. Ticketing problems would be all but solved if they just employed the simple, the just, the democratic, the American method: the line. A line ensures the most deserving people get in, and also brings along the added bonus of a huge party outside. So before the administration shells out $100,000-plus of our dollars to get Bill Clinton, we should ask ourselves if it's really worth it for someone we're not going to see.
