Sanders event ticketing was poorly planned and timed

Bernie Sanders is coming to Hopkins on Nov. 17 as part of both MSE’s and FAS’s speaker series. Sanders is the most prominent speaker the symposiums have brought to campus in recent years, and in anticipation of a large crowd and an intense security situation, the University required the groups to dole out free tickets to the event.

These tickets were reserved online through JHU Tickets, and they became available on Sunday, Nov. 6 at 5 p.m. Innumerable Hopkins students and possibly some general admittees took to their computers and hit that “checkout” button faster than we try to for course registration.

After clicking that button, I was directed to my cart and saw a message claiming that my ticket was reserved for the next 20 minutes. But on the next screen, a message popped up claiming that the quantities in the cart were too great or that the event was sold out.

Obviously, one ticket was not greater than the limit, and how could the event be sold out if that ticket was supposedly reserved in my cart for 20 minutes?

In the end, I did get a ticket. After a friend told me to just frantically click the checkout button over and over until it went through, I now have a ticket to see Bernie Sanders speak. However, I’m in the minority.

Some students gave up after their purchases didn’t go through the first time, thus forfeiting their reservations. Some students were just too late and missed their chance. Regardless of why they don’t have a ticket, students are frustrated by the process and irritated by the lack of organization for standby tickets and overflow rooms.

According to the event page on Facebook, there will be an overflow room in Hodson 110, where the event will be live streamed. Everyone who goes to the overflow room as well as to Shriver will receive a copy of Sanders’ book, Our Revolution. Event coordinators will also begin admitting people without tickets to fill empty seats in Shriver at 6:30 p.m. on the night of the symposium.

Ticket distribution for this event was completely necessary, but it was quite disorganized. FAS and MSE cannot be blamed for overloading the server, but technical difficulties resulting from a large amount of people trying to get tickets probably should have been expected. Maybe they could have used another system to distribute tickets, but now they should focus on enabling as many people as they can to listen to Senator Sanders speak.

Especially after the American people elected Donald Trump to the nation’s highest political office, it is especially important that we, the future of this country, listen to a diverse selection of political opinions. Listening to Sanders speak in person is an incredible opportunity, and I want to thank FAS, MSE and everyone involved who made this possible. Now I only hope that you can continue to make this possible for all of the students, faculty and citizens of Baltimore who couldn’t get tickets to the event.

Adding more overflow rooms is one solution that will allow students to passively listen to Sanders speak. However, I hope the event coordinators think of alternative solutions that would allow more students to engage with Sanders. That could mean finding a different location with a capacity for greater numbers of attendees, or it could mean introducing a way to submit questions from one of the overflow rooms.

Regardless of how disorganized the ticket distribution was for this event, I hope it will bring students together in a time of such political divisiveness. And I hope MSE and FAS will continue to bring such diverse and opinionated speakers to their symposiums.

Gillian Lelchuk is a junior Writing Seminars and Mathematics double major from Los Alamitos, Calif. She is the Opinions Editor.