Tickets for the Taylor Swift Storytellers Concert, taking place at Big Bridges on Monday, Oct. 15, have been opened up to all the Claremont Colleges. However, “more than 500 seats in the auditorium will be removed or will be unavailable due to camera and scaffolding requirements,” wrote Karen Angemi, the Harvey Mudd College Director of the President’s Office and Secretary of the Corporation, in an e-mail to HMC students. This lack of seating places limitations on the number of tickets distributed.
“Each Harvey Mudd College student will receive one ticket to the concert, which will give her/him access to preferred seating in the center-front section of Big Bridges,” Angemi wrote. Because HMC won the contest, their students get first access to the tickets without any limitations.
A select group of students from other campuses who voted online for HMC will receive automatic access to tickets. Attendees of the Facebook event “Win a Taylor Swift Performance on Your Campus!” created by Yeahmoon Hong HM ’15 and Travis Beckman HM ’15 were placed on a list to pick up tickets along with HMC students. Approximately 190 students have been placed on the list.
“There was no exact way to get everyone who voted, so I just asked the school to consider taking the FB event into account,” Beckman wrote on the Facebook event page.
The remaining tickets can be obtained through lotteries and raffles held by each college. Schools were allotted a number of tickets proportional to their school’s population.
Pomona College’s Assistant Director of the Smith Campus Center and Student Programs, Ellie Ash-Balá, informed students by e-mail on Oct. 5 that “200 free tickets for Pomona students” were available. If students signed up at the Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC) office this past Monday and Tuesday, they were submitted into a lottery with winners announced on Wednesday. “On 10/15, the day of the concert, [Pomona College] will send out notifications to a second group of students who signed up for the lottery to receive any tickets that were not claimed by the first group,” Ash-Bala wrote.
The Claremont McKenna College Programming Board announced via e-mail that they received “approximately 220 tickets for the show.” If students replied “Yes” to the email, they would be entered into a pool from which 220 randomly selected students will receive tickets.
According to Jordan Fox PZ ’16, Pitzer students received info on Oct. 9 that 150 tickets would be raffled off to students who signed up at the Office of Student Affairs.
Scripps College Associated Students Student Activities Chair Meredith Kertzman ’12 wrote in an e-mail to Scripps students, “Scripps has received 172 tickets and will be conducting a raffle to give them away to students.” Scripps students had until 8 p.m. Thursday night to enter their names in the raffle on a Google spreadsheet, and results were announced later that evening.
Many students from other campuses voted for HMC in the online contest, but were unaware of the Facebook event page and are upset that they have not been able to automatically receive tickets.
“The confusion among the 5Cs is really discouraging and disappointing for all the people who were, at first, really excited to have Taylor Swift perform here,” said Pamela Ng SC ’16. “A lot of people voted and made it a part of their routine, and to have it be chosen based off an event list on Facebook is unfair.”