Students looking to resell their tickets to the 802.1 spring concert featuring Aminé surged on social media Friday. The surge comes after an email sent to ticket buyers around 9 p.m. Thursday said the spring concert venue would be moving from the Boston University Fitness and Recreation Center courts, to outdoors at the BU Beach.
The concert could no longer be held in FitRec because of inaccurate recommendations organizers got from a consulting company about fire regulations, according to an email sent out by the Campus Activities Board and Student Government to attendees via Eventbrite. The email read Boston Fire Department informed organizers on Wednesday the venue needed to change.
Some students requested a refund after finding out about the venue change, but SAO denied their requests.
Erika Yi said she originally bought tickets to attend with her friend who is a fan of Aminé. When she found out about the change in venue, she emailed SAO asking for a refund because of the weather forecast for Friday. The office responded around noon today to the request.
“The changes were made to allow as many students access to the show as possible. The concert will take place rain or shine and we still expect the event will be a great experience for the BU student community,” SAO wrote in an email to Yi, who shared it with The Daily Free Press. “We encourage you to join your fellow Terriers, but should you decide you no longer want to attend, there are lots of students looking to purchase tickets on the concert’s Facebook page. Unfortunately, we are unable to issue refunds.”
Yi, who is a senior in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, said the change was “ridiculous.”
“People are selling tickets for so cheap because they don’t want to stand in the rain. Boston is cold and it’s raining, and I know for a fact people will get sick,” Yi said. “Students can’t afford to get sick right now.”
For some, a refund request came because of weather concerns. For Isabela Ramirez, it was because her doctor told her she couldn’t attend. The College of Arts and Sciences sophomore has health concerns that led to her doctor telling her not to attend the now outdoor concert at all. But when she asked for a refund for her tickets, a “splurge” for her, she was told to sell her ticket on her own.
“For some people, [changing the venue] is small and trivial and didn’t let it ruin their night, but I can not participate. I was thinking about students who have mobility differences, being in the mud all night doesn’t seem like a good idea,” Ramirez said. “If [the school] was going to do this, they shouldn’t have sold tickets if they didn’t have a venue locked down. To change it to something that is not accessible … they should refund tickets if you don’t have access or changed your mind because this isn’t what you signed up for.”
Ramirez said she wasn’t notified until late in the day today, although she did buy her tickets in advance via Eventbrite. By the time she learned she needed to sell her tickets, a lot of people had already sold theirs online.
Around 1 p.m., the official Facebook and Twitter page for the concert posted about the venue change. A post earlier in the day also stated students would not be able to bring umbrellas to the concert, but that free ponchos would be handed out.
Max Davidowitz posted on Facebook about selling his concert ticket. Although he was looking to sell because of personal scheduling conflicts, he was wary about security at the BU Beach.
“I had friends saying they’re going to go to the foot bridge, but you could probably watch from there or surrounding buildings,” the College of Engineering senior said. “If it wasn’t for the rain, in and of itself, the venue change would have been good. Having it in FitRec would be weird.”
Libni Delfin said since she’s getting sick, she wanted to sell her tickets. The original email sent to ticket buyers Thursday night didn’t specify whether there would be any overhead protection from the elements.
“Definitely the night before the concert it’s pretty unacceptable [to change the venue],” Delfin said. “If that were to happen in real life you’d expect a refund or an option. But BU would never do that.”
Delfin and Yi were able to sell their tickets quickly after posting on social media, but Yi said she still found the change upsetting.
“I’m just mad because they made last minute changes — like very last minute changes — and they didn’t give us an option to change out of it,” Yi said. “And it’s not small. It’s a big change.”
This is an incredibly one-sided article and a shame for the Daily Free Press to publish. By reading through, it becomes obvious that no effort has been placed into gathering the opinions on both sides of the issue. This reads less like an impartial article and more of a rant against the concert organizers. Was Student Government or SAR even asked for a response? Seems like the writer did not even bother to do so. Sad!