The Student Government Association (SGA) announced an arrangement with Pier Six Pavillion this past August to offer Hopkins students a special discount on tickets for the Avicii concert. Despite the short advertising period, with tickets going on sale the day the SGA emailed the student body, they sold out of the initial 1000 reserved. This prompted the SGA to secure 1000 more, giving Hopkins students half of the 4000 total available seats.
Based on these results, this page commends the SGA for their organization of such a highly successful opportunity for students to experience a concert in the Baltimore area. Even with the quick email sent over the summer, there was more than enough interest in Avicii for students to make one of the largest off-campus deals sponsored by the SGA successful. Their foresight in reserving buses to shuttle ticket-holders to the location is additionally commendable given the difficulty of mass amounts of students individually coordinating transportation.
Despite its success, the popularity of the concert came with complications. The high-demand created a scalping market among students that has pushed prices as high as $300 on stubhub.com and $200 on Facebook. We recognize that tickets that are resold for such high prices are out of the control of the SGA.
Advertising, while effective, took place over the summer, when many students were disconnected from the Hopkins campus. In the future, this page suggests that the SGA attempts to coordinate advertising while classes are still in session and give students more time to hear about the event before the tickets go on sale.
In light of the popularity of the event, we encourage the SGA to offer more social events, like Avicii, where Hopkins students have exclusive rights to discounted tickets and transportation.
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