To the Editor:
I would like to thank Jeff Abboud for writing, and The Phillipian for printing, last week’s commentary article “Grasshopper Blues” (10/19). As Student Council’s role is to represent the opinions of the student body, all feedback, positive or negative, is greatly appreciated. The Grasshopper ticket lottery was an attempt to solve the dire problems of the previous ticket distribution system, in which students had to stand on line for hours, early in the morning, and many who arrived as early as 6:15 a.m. waited in vain, losing their sleep and going away empty-handed. In discussion with Mr. Bacon of the Theatre Department and Frank Pinto (Head of Technology for Student Council) we developed the idea of an online system of ticket acquisition. We decided on a lottery because a first-come, first-serve system would likely jam the network, and, unless we started offering tickets very early in the morning or late at night, many people would likely be busy and unable to place their request quickly. We discussed the options at Student Council, and many of the concerns mentioned in “Grasshopper Blues” were voiced (that the most determined students would not necessarily receive tickets, that Seniors might be excluded, etc.), but after polling our dorms and students in Commons and Ryley, we found an overwhelming majority of students favored the lottery system. No system will be perfect, since there are simply more people wishing to reserve tickets than there are seats in Tang. Unfortunately, someone will always be disappointed. Our hope was to make ticket acquisition significantly more expedient for those students who did initially receive tickets (a majority of those who entered the lottery) and that, as, thus far, everyone who waits on the standby lines is admitted, students who were not initially assigned tickets wait for a maximum of 45 minutes just before the show, still less than 90 minutes, and still at a time preferable to 6-7:30 a.m. Nonetheless, in pursuit of Student Council’s primary goal, I would like to gather as much feedback as possible, hopefully via a survey sometime later this week, but, as always, we also appreciate any individual comments, questions or concerns, so please feel free to contact me, your class representatives, or anyone else on the Council. Thank you for your patience, and please let us know what you think, Teddy Collins ‘08 Student Council President
