TP or not TP: The five stages of grief you’ll experience when buying a Timepiece ticket

To the average outsider, a night out in Exeter may seem simple, but beneath the surface of Exeter nightlife lies a chaotic, black-market economy of ticket reselling that makes The Wolf of Wall Street look tame. Acquiring a ticket to Exeter’s most in-demand nights out is an art that even this silly third year can’t seem to master.

You can do everything right – work out when tickets drop, prep your group chat, set your alarm and run to the best spot on campus for a semi-decent WiFi connection – but, FIXR will still tell you that all tickets are sold out.

So, let’s break down the five stages of grief every Exeter student has experienced trying to get their hands on a Timepiece ticket. Brace yourself – it’s about to get traumatic.

1. Denial

“There’s no way it’s already sold out. Refreshing the page for the 37^th time should do the trick, right?”. Sold out and spiralling. You refresh the page, convinced the site’s just glitching. Maybe if you close your eyes and reopen them, there’ll be tickets available. Surely no one is that desperate for a night out in Exeter.

2. Anger

You take to Overheard and write: “Dear fresher, who bought 20 tickets just to resell them at £30 each, I hope you step on LEGO.”

After realising that, yes, all the tickets are gone, and yes, they sold out within three seconds, you enter a blind rage. You furiously message the group chat and vow to take a week off as you rant about bots, ticket hoarders and why you swore this wouldn’t happen again after last week’s fiasco.

3. Bargaining

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“Willing to trade my soul, half my overdraft, and a half-eaten flapjack for a TP Wednesday ticket. Message me ASAP”‘. You’ve made it to Wednesday; all your friends are going out and you’re battling serious FOMO. Desperation sets in. It’s time to set your pride aside and search Overheard for that golden ticket.

You post to every Facebook group, DM strangers, and even consider making an embarrassing public plea. You will even pay ridiculous amounts of money and risk getting scammed just to try and secure a TP ticket. As your dignity slowly erodes, you message people you haven’t seen since freshers’ week – maybe they have a spare ticket?

4. Depression

“It’s fine. I didn’t want to spend my night queuing for the TP toilets anyway. I’ll just cry into my Deliveroo instead.” You’ve done everything – searched high and low, messaged more strangers than you’d care to admit – and yet, the only ticket available is going for £50 from some shady reseller with a profile picture of their cat. It hits you: this is your life now. You begin mourning the fact that you’ll be spending yet another Wednesday night on Netflix while your mates live it up in Timepiece without you.

5. Acceptance

 You finally strike a deal: some kind soul offers you a ticket for a reasonable £15. Is it a scam? Maybe. But at this point, you’ve accepted that, even if the night’s a disaster, at least you’ll be boogying in Top Top, overpriced Venom in hand, telling yourself, “it was totally worth it.”

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