Zoe Manzanetti
Staff Writer
Our Associated Students Program Board may be great because it gives us a lot of cool, discounted opportunities, but while the prices are cheap (or even free), the real price students have to pay is too high.
As they did with Snoop Dogg, the organization was giving away the free tickets for the early Deadpool showing during a time when many students were in class. Then, they hosted the showing at a time when many students cannot even attend due to classes or other obligations. And to add insult to injury: the tickets were available at 10 AM on a weekday of Week 6, a prime week for midterms and exams. This scenario is only exacerbated by the extreme competition for seats; due to the limited amount of tickets available, students were forced to either skip class or skip the opportunity for the free movie screening, making many unhappy.
There is a lock-in fee every quarter that students pay to AS for events like this, so does not every student deserve the opportunity to see a free screening of Deadpool if they want to? Yes, there are limited tickets due to seat availability; IV Theater is as big as we are going to get and thus we can’t do anything to change that. But what they can change is the time of ticket availability. Being a campus organization, it seems even more unfair that AS Program Board is placing a direct competition between academics and fun events. Why should students who attend their classes be punished by not being able to attend, simply because they can not sit and wait for hours to get tickets? AS should be an organization that takes into account the main reason we are all here: school.
Yes, some students do not have classes at 10 AM during the weekday, but for those of us who do, they should offer a second opportunity to get tickets at a time that’s more accessible for most students. I understand that your hours are 10 AM-5 PM, but an extra few hours every once in a while is not too much to ask. AS Program Board is taking the easy way out by making it easier for the organization but extremely difficult for their peers.
I talked to innumerable friends who didn’t get Snoop Dogg tickets because they had midterms, iClicker attendance requirements or simply just classes that they didn’t feel they could skip; they were, justifiably, upset. But, even after all of the uproar about the unfair ticketing for a once-in-a-lifetime-concert-opportunity, AS Program Board did not change its ways for the Deadpool screening. Once again, I have too many friends who couldn’t get tickets because of midterms or classes which they, rightfully, deemed more important than a movie screening and unfortunately, I feel that in the future the same thing will happen again.
If the student-run organization is not catering to the students, then what is it doing? Why am I paying $12.10 every quarter if I do not have the opportunity to get the benefits? AS Program Board should acknowledge that everyone who is eligible to get these discounted tickets is a student and therefore should not be asked to diminish their education to receive the benefits of their organization. It is an unfair demand and one that should be defunded if no changes are made.
Sure, not having the chance to see a $5 Snoop Dogg concert or free advanced screening of Deadpool would be really sad and unfortunate, but if hundreds of students are not able to attend because they are doing what they are supposed to be doing, then it is really no different then if it were not even an option. AS Program Board needs to seriously re-evaluate what they are asking students to do and the real opportunity they are giving us. Creating competition between other students for tickets is a necessary evil, but creating competition between classes and student events is lazy disregard.