Tuesday, February23rd, 2016 | TechNews campus@technewsiit.com la:!§!i iiiEI 3 OCL revamps Spring Formal ticket sales Anoopa Sundararaj an EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Every year, Spring Formal hosted by Union Board is one of the largest and most successful events that we see at Illinois Tech. Last year’s Spring Formal was held at The Crystal Gardens at Navy Pier and 400 students attended, although several problems were encountered in the process of those 400 students obtaining tickets. This year, the Office of Campus Life (OCL) has revamped their policy on ticket sales to allow for a fairer and more systematic sale of tickets. Alex Carlson, the Director of Campus Life, helped us understand these changes and why they were made. According to Carlson, 500 tickets will be sold this year over a two—week period from Monday, February 29, to Friday, March 11. Ticket sales will also occur at different times of the day for different days of the week: sales will begin at 1 pm. on Mondays and Tuesdays, 4 pm. on Wednesdays and Thursdays and noon on Fridays. When asked what prompted the change, Carlson says, “Last year, tickets sold out very quickly and students told us they were skipping class and work to stand in line for tickets. We want to make sure that students have access to purchase tickets in a way that is not impacting them academically. We also want to ensure that as many different students as possible are able to purchase tickets. By placing tickets on sale on different days and different times, we hope to be able to reach on and off campus residents, students with only night classes, graduate and undergraduate level students, and anyone in between.” A group of student organization leaders whose organizations often deal with ticket sales for their events were consulted about these changes before they were enforced. By doing so, OCL was able to obtain direct student feedback on the potential impact that the change could have on students. The new system has been put in place to spread out ticket sales so that each day, only a certain number of tickets are on sale and once those tickets have been sold, ticket sales will end until the next day. OCL hopes that this variety of days and times will result in a smoother and more effective ticket sale process. Another aspect of the ticket sales that caused some conflict last year was some students buying tickets that they did not intend to use and then selling them to other students at higher prices. In response to being asked what, if anything, was being done, or could be done to prevent this from being repeated this year, Carlson says, “It is really important for everyone buying a ticket to read the Campus Life Ticket Sales Policy at http:// web.iit.edu/campus—life/events/ticket—sales. Any student buying tickets from Campus Life agrees to these policies. Any ticket exchanges (regular or guest ticket name changes, even if you are selling your ticket to another person) must be done in our office. If that is not done, students will not be admitted to the event.” She goes on to say, “With exchanges our office will refund the original purchaser their funds and have the new purchaser place their order. Refunds will be processed at the end of each week throughout the semester.” Finally, when asked about the increase in prices for non—IIT guests, Carlson says that while outside guests are allowed to attend big events like Spring Formal, the focus remains to serve Illinois Tech students who pay into the Student Activities Fund (SAF) that sponsors these events. She added that the decision was made, “to encourage students to attend with campus members, but still allow them the option to bring an outside guest if they would like.” If you have any further questions about the changes in Spring Formal Ticket Sales, you can contact Alex Carlson at the Office of Campus Life or email her at acarls03@ iit.edu. SPRING AFORMAL THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO APRILI, 2016 TICKET SALE CALEN DAR M T W R F FEB. 29 MAR. 1 3 4 1-6 PM 1-6 PM 4-6 PM 4-6 PM 12-6 PM 7 8 1O 11 1-6 PM 1-6 PM 4-6 PM 4-6 PM 12-6 PM ACCORDING TO OCL TICKET SALE POLICY: TICKETS WILL BE SOLD AT THE OFFICE OF CAMPUS LIFE IN THE MTCC A MAXIMUM OF 50 TICKETS WILL BE SOLD EACH DAY $20 ||T STUDENTS | $40 NON—IIT STUDENTS Adverfise m OOYIIMI bUSIflZSS@IZCV\YIZWSIIFCOVW