The link to purchase tickets to the Accounting and Finance (A&F) Society Ball was leaked to members of the society a day before tickets were released. This left many students without a ticket as the event was labelled sold out.
The first ball in four years for the society was announced late last month, with tickets to be sold on the 22nd of February. A source close to the society told The College View that the link to purchase tickets was shared a day early to committee members and friends of the committee.
According to other students, this link was later leaked to group chats and friend groups which led to the website displaying the event as sold out before the tickets were meant to go on sale.
One student said, “It wasn’t a private link, so there wasn’t a limit on how long it would be open for… It was inevitable really, it spread really quickly,”
In a statement to The College View A&F said they felt like there was a lot of confusion over the events leading up to ticket sales took place.
The Chair, Sally Ann, and Vice-Chair, Dean, said “…we spoke with [Clubs and Socs] and asked them to provide us with the link a day earlier in order to ensure all committee members had tickets, unfortunately we think this is when the link was leaked which was obviously never our intention.”
This leak exposes flaws in the ticket service Ticketsolve, an approved service by Clubs and Socs, and also shows the difficulties surrounding the coordination and organisation of this year’s ball due to Covid, capacity and demand.
According to A&F, when all tickets on Ticketsolve are in baskets or sold, this leads to the event being labelled as sold out.
A&F added if a ticket in a basket is not bought, there is a “significant delay” for the ticket to become available again. This delay led to many students believing that tickets were sold out but, according to A&F, tickets didn’t sell out officially until the 1st of March.
A&F also highlighted the high demand for tickets that they experienced this year. Due to Covid-19 reasons, the usual capacity limit of 1,000 was quartered this year by Clubs and Socs.
The society chairs said, “This reduced capacity, on top of having the most members that we have ever had, led to the demand for tickets hugely outnumbering the supply.”
The chairs added, “…unfortunately we did not have the capacity to accommodate everyone interested in attending the A&F Ball,”. Currently there are around 2,000 members in A&F, according to the society.
The ball, which was in the Bridgehouse Hotel in Tullamore, was held last Thursday. Sally Ann, Chair of A&F said the event was “ brilliant” and got significant positive coverage on relevant social media.
The chair added she was, “Really proud of all the work that went into it and how smoothly everything ran,”.
Muiris O’Cearbhaill
Image Credit: The College View