Rondelet tickets sell in record time
Rondelet, Rice’s annual spring formal hosted by the Rice Program Council, has seen an increase in demand and popularity this year, according to RPC President Aisha Jeeva. This year’s Rondelet will feature a ballpark theme, swing dancing and a live band, and will be hosted on March 20 at Minute Maid Park.
“This Rondelet holds the record for fastest ticket sale in RPC history — all 1,400 tickets were signed up for in a record five hours and 43 minutes,” Jeeva, a Martel College senior said.
Jeeva said RPC had taken steps to ensure the ticket distribution method would remain functional. The ticketing website for last semester’s Esperanza had crashed within 10 minutes of opening due to high internet traffic, forcing RPC to distribute tickets through a random lottery drawing.
“We worked incredibly hard to ensure that there were no issues with this new ticketing system, including moving away from using Rice servers, which were obviously unable to handle the huge amount of traffic caused by high ticket demand,” Jeeva said.
According to Jeeva, the college demographics for ticket sign-ups differed between the two formals. For Esperanza, each college had between 110 and about 150 sign-ups, with Jones and McMurtry having the most at 153 each. For Rondelet, Jones, Lovett, Baker and Wiess each had more than 70, with Wiess having the most at 92.
In addition, the number of total ticket sign-ups were around half of Esperanza’s. A total of 1,507 people signed up for the random drawing for Esperanza tickets. For Rondelet, a total of 761 people signed up to purchase 1400 tickets.
According to Jeeva, around 1,100 tickets have been paid for. The 300 remaining unclaimed tickets were sold on a first come, first served basis on Thursday, Feb. 26. RPC will host a final round of sales on Thursday, March 12 after students are given a chance to refund their tickets before then.
“Students who do not return their tickets [before the 12th] will no longer be able to receive a refund for their tickets whether or not they can attend,” Jeeva said. “As tickets are non-transferable, they will be unable to sell them to other students. This method has been implemented to avoid any instances of unfair ticket scalping.”
Jeeva emphasized the importance of student participation in events such as Esperanza and Rondelet.
“We do not make any profit on these formals, and all ticket sales are used to cover event costs,” Jeeva said. “[We] hope students understand that if they wish for us to continue to have Esperanza and Rondelet, then it is in their interest to attend the events and support us.”
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