Hundreds of tickets for this year’s Freshers’ Week were left unsold, leaving several colleges with a non-refundable surplus.
College Entertainment (Entz) reps and Freshers’ Week committees found themselves unable to sell vast numbers of tickets, having pre-bought them all from the two main club night companies, Shuffle Nights Ltd and FOMO.
Lady Margaret Hall Freshers’ rep Alessandro Venerandi admitted, “Both companies state before the sale of tickets that they can’t be refunded – unfortunately, ticket sales were down from previous Freshers’ Weeks, acrosss all four years.”
It is not only LMH that has experienced difficulties in shifting all of the tickets purchased for sale in Freshers’ Week. Jesus, Oriel and Keble have all reportedly undersold. FOMO CEO Piers Rhys-Lodwick, told Cherwell that two colleges did not manage to sell all of the tickets they had purchased from FOMO for the night of Thursday 9th October, at The Bridge nightclub on Hythe Bridge Street.
One of these colleges was Keble, who, Rhys-Lodwick explained, “only did one night with us, but they ended up with sixty tickets left over. However, our policy is not to refund pre-sale tickets bought for Freshers’ Week, as the revenue from ticket sales contributes towards DJs, equipment, decor and staff. We hired Ministry of Sound DJs for some nights in Freshers’ Week, and one DJ came all the way from Manchester. We can’t turn them away if colleges don’t sell all of their tickets.”
Rhys-Lodwick also added that Keble, and the second (anonymous) college who undersold on the Thursday of Freshers’ Week, were able to sell some tickets on the door that night. However, as most tickets are sold on a pre-sale basis, this approach “wasn’t very successful”, according to the FOMO CEO.
FOMO does not have written contracts binding a college to sell a certain number of tickets, and while they are willing to negotiate refunds if cancellations are made far enough in advance, the short length of Freshers’ Week means that JCR committees must therefore buy a number of tickets based on sales records of previous years.
Shuffle Nights Ltd reported that the company hadn’t been aware of any colleges under-selling tickets in Freshers’ Week. Shuffle C.E.O. Toby Baker said, “All of our twenty-three events hit capacity so I don’t suspect any colleges failed to sell too many tickets.”
Agreeing with Baker, Shuffle’s Hannah Robinson told Cherwell, “We had probably the highest attendance for Freshers’ Week in the last five years, with twenty three sold out events. There are always a couple of colleges which don’t sell all of their tickets, but hardly any at all that I have heard of from this year.”
One third year commented, “I know Freshers’ Week events aren’t exactly aimed at my age group, but they seem to have lost their charm. I mean, Freshers’ Flu is a phrase for a reason.”
