October 17, 2024
The tension is high. Students tapping away at their keyboards as the clock strikes noon. Anxiety surges through their fingertips as some cheer while others gasp at their screens.
The ticket process for this year's upcoming concert, starring Jason Derulo, was nothing short of exciting. However, this year the ticket process was not through Eventbrite, but rather the Vivenu website, which is another way to get tickets to events.
“The university has recently moved over to the new platform, Vivenu, for all major event ticketing,” said Vice President and Event Coordinator for Student Life, Dylan Denning. “The new portal is more customizable, and also allows event attendees to add their tickets to a digital wallet, like Apple or Google, which prevents issues pulling tickets up if service is spotty. Students are also able to update their tickets directly should they need to change a guest name or cancel a ticket for any reason.”
Through this website, there were two options listed on every student’s screen: floor seats or lower bowl. Of course, most of HPU leaned towards the floor due to just being close to the artist as well as convenience, sight-wise.
“I believe a pit would be more fun. Plus, you would be able to have more people on the floor if there weren’t chairs,” said sophomore Chloe Koper. Eyebrows raised when the student body discovered there were floor seats. However, this is nothing new. In this year's family weekend concert, chairs were used as well instead of a general standing room.
“With the doors opening at 7:00 p.m., we realize that it can be a long time for students to stand before the concert artist takes the stage and we want to offer more options for those students on the floor. There will still be plenty of room for students that choose to stand in the ‘pit’ to safely do so!” said Denning.
Despite the change of events, students with lower bowl seating were questioning if they would have a second chance at getting floor tickets. Last year at Flo Rida, students who arrived early were able to get floor wristbands, but then some decided to sit down in seats, even after receiving wristbands.
“By making Floor Access Tickets available through the online Ticket Registration, we no longer need to distribute Floor Access Wristbands to early arrivals,” said Denning. “This process slowed down entry to the tailgate last year and we found that some early arrivals preferred to sit in the bowl even though they received a Floor Access Wristband. This change was made to simplify things at the entrance line and to allow students to register for what they prefer.”
Overall, the point was so that students can just go straight into the concert without contemplating at the last-minute what ticket they will be receiving and make entry go a lot more smoothly than last year. Even though this was the ultimate goal, this was not the outcome for many students when it came down to even getting tickets to begin with.
“Honestly, I was really stressed about getting my ticket. I was unfortunately not able to get a floor like last year. I do feel lucky to even have a ticket though, I know some students who aren’t able to attend due to the high volume of people wanting to attend,” said senior Sarah Lamb.
Despite the trials and tribulations of the tickets and seats, HPU is still hyped for this upcoming concert.
“Flo Rida was great; my friends and I were able to get floor seats and we had a great time. I think Jason will be just as good or maybe better,” said Lamb.
“I’m not the biggest fan so I would’ve preferred a number of different artists, likely just as possible to have performed here, but it’ll be cool to say I’ve seen him,” said freshman Aurora Dennison.
The concert will be on October 18th, 2024, at 8:00 p.m. at the Qubein Arena.