Tuesday 11am. Listening Party time! While I sit in my science class Center Stage is taking over the Commons with some games to promote ticket sales happening the following morning. Normally students camp out before ticket sales but something was different about this concert that we did not expect. People started camping out at 8:30 am on Tuesday with a full 24 hours ahead of them until tickets were available. From then on till 8am the next day there was a steady flow of people. When I got out of class at 2pm it was back to ticket sorting so that tomorrow would run smoothly. Thankfully the floor tickets arrive and we are ready for the next morning! We keep preparing for the ticket sales in a variety of ways.
UPB has never experienced anything of this scale before so it is all new to us. We put down tape to create lines for people to stand in because University Unions did not have enough orange cones. By 10pm we have over 200 people in line. We begin to hand out forms because people start to complain that people are cutting by joining their friends in line. This is always a problem. For past ticket sales we have handed out the forms at 6am, people complain then because after waiting all night people’s friends join the line. Either way we do it we have people complaining and requesting other options. As a student run organization we can only do so much. We cannot police the line to restrict all people entering because we have class and other obligations.
At 1030 pm we set up jeopardy to allow for an opportunity for students to get meet Wiz Khalifa. After an hour and a half 6 lucky people were awarded! We had mini games of corn hole and frisbee going on to win meet and greets as well. The coolest and most new thing to win meet and greets this year was our video contest. More than 10 videos were submitted with JMU student’s version of “Black and Yellow”.Even with all these opportunities to win meet and greets people are still upset. We can tell it is going to be a long night.
If every ticket form we give out purchases 8 tickets we would sell out at 250 people. Normally people do not purchase all 8 so we continue to give out the forms that the Warren Box Office requires us to use for ticket sales. We play Get Him To The Greek to entertain people while they wait and finally at 3am we are done for the night. People are settled in and I try to sleep for 2 hours before we have to organize the people in the morning.
6am and the sun is rising. We get people in order, stamp the first 100 ticket forms to ensure that they had not left over night. The line continues to grow and our uncertainty grows with it. We would hate to tell people to get out of line on the fact that their could still be tickets left. Tents are broken down and we start cleaning up 500 people’s trash. 800 am doors are open and ticket sales finally begin. By 850 am all the tickets online were sold out. By 900 am floor tickets are sold out and we are only left with reserved seats. I am blown away by the response from JMU. At 1030 am ticket sell out! The last ticket forms that got tickets were around 470 which means we gave out 100 more forms than we had tickets. Not a bad guess when people could buy 1-8 tickets.
We have never sold out a Convo show, much less selling a show out in 1 day, much less sold it out in 2 and a half hours. This year UPB has sold out 2 shows. This is hugely new for our organization but a great thing to consider for future shows. We work hard to try and choose artists that will be received positively by the students. I am ecstatic that we have done so well while I was director.
I can’t wait to see everyone at the show on April 2nd because a sold out Convo will be amazing.
my feet don't want to go to sleep 