On a rainy Friday morning, Luke Miller (senior-English) waited for Third Eye Blind tickets at the State Theatre for hours and came away with only his wet clothes.
"Students who sat at home at their computer for five minutes got precedence over students that sat in the rain for four hours," Miller said.
He wasn't alone. Because of confusion over advertising, students expecting 200 student tickets discounted through the Student Programming Association (SPA) were surprised to find that the theater only sold 82 tickets at the box office before selling out.
In reality, no tickets were actually set aside for students, the executive director Mike Negra said. All 561 tickets were sold on a first-come, first-serve basis, and online buyers scooped up most of the $35 seats before students had a chance to get the discounted $25 tickets at the theater, he said.
"We were blindsided in the amount of sales online," Negra said. "We never sold out a show in a day, and we never sold out a show in a month."
At 9:15 a.m., the line was past Herwig's Bistro, 132 W. College Ave. By 11:15 a.m., Negra said, when tickets sold out, the line was halfway up Fraser Street.
Students said they felt disappointed and frustrated because they thought these tickets were set aside for them.
"You advertised this through SPA, and SPA's funded through our student activity fee," Melissa Parrillo (senior-industrial engineering) said.
Claire DiGiacomo, entertainment director for SPA, said she was saddened to hear that students left the line disappointed.
"We're looking to the future to make sure this doesn't happen again," she said. "We feel for the students because they were really excited."
Once the tickets sold out, students requested Negra come out and address the crowd. Negra said he took down the e-mails of students in line, who will receive precedence if Third Eye Blind adds another show.
Negra said he is sorry for any misunderstanding and hopes students don't have to pay more to go to the show. But some students showed their frustration by giving him fake e-mail addresses.
"Most of the people I talked to were understanding," Negra said. "But there were some pissed-off people out there due to some of the e-mails I got -- I didn't know there was an 'F-U.com.'"
DiGiacomo said she is happy the State Theatre sold out but she wishes it didn't have to turn so many students away.
"The State Theatre has never had a concert that sold out in 15 minutes," DiGiacomo said. "But the students who wanted the subsidy didn't get them. We didn't expect there to be such a surge in online sales."
