Students requested Grasshopper Night online this year, through a lottery system designed by Student Council President Teddy Collins ’08, Head of Techmasters Frank Pinto ’08 and Instructor in Theatre Bruce Bacon. But some students who didn’t get tickets wondered if the new system was really better than the lines of past years. Maggie LeMaitre ’08 disapproved of the new online request system. As a Senior, LeMaitre was disappointed that she did not obtain tickets through the lottery. She said that the new system was not very fair to people who might have wanted to go more than others. “I guess it’s easier because you don’t have to wait in line, but basically everyone who really wanted to go last year was able to get tickets by standing in line,” said LeMaitre. Both Collins and Bacon acknowledge this point. Bacon said, “This system is fair across the board. The only problem with it is that it cuts out people who make getting tickets to this show a huge priority.” He also acknowledged that part of the problem was that some students might not have even wanted tickets. In past years this was not as much of a problem because the inconvenience of obtaining tickets hindered students who did not really want to go to Grasshopper Night. Some siblings received six tickets combined, while some families did not receive any, which contributed to the controversy. Collins, Bacon and Pinto, recognized that neither the old system nor the new one can satisfy everyone. However, they were eager to receive student feedback, and Collins hopes to put out a survey regarding this issue soon. Collins said that when he first began asking people whether they would prefer an online system for ticketing, most were in favor of the idea. Collins initially proposed the online system after hearing continual complaints about the difficulty of securing tickets. He spoke first with Bacon and then with Pinto, who handled the technology aspects of the proposal, and received positive feedback from both. The proposal was immediately put into action. Students were sent a link to the online ticketing application. After logging in to the system with their PAnet username and password, students requested a maximum of three tickets and selected which of the four shows they could attend. The system was planned to run from Wednesday, October 10 at 10 p.m. until Saturday, October 13 at midnight. After midnight on Saturday, names were randomly selected and students were allotted tickets by lottery. Aside from a technical glitch, which delayed the opening of the application for a few hours, the new system ran smoothly. According to Collins, the system would be able to run without glitches if it were to be used again next year. Students with allotted tickets visited the box office during the following week to claim their tickets. Unclaimed tickets will be redistributed to those who failed to get tickets during the lottery. Students without tickets must arrive at the theater early before their preferred show. According to Bacon, those who waited in the standby line for the show in the past years are usually admitted.
