Grad Ball ache: Hundreds left outraged at bungling SU ticket fiasco

People from other unis could be there instead of you


Furious finalists were left empty handed after another SU cock-up on grad ball tickets.

This year, the SU decided to offer a +1 option on grad ball tickets.

The 350 dinner and ball tickets sold out in record time for the end of year event after going on sale at the SU box office on Tuesday morning following queues forming at around 5am.

A total of 2350 tickets went on sale. There are 8,000 finalists.

Kimberley Rachel Lewis, a third year midwifery student, said: “I couldn’t believe how busy it already was when I got there. There were no staff members to be seen until gone 8am. They didn’t even tell the masses of people who had no chance of getting a ticket to leave.”

Entry tickets went on sale the following day at 8am and sold out in a similar fashion.

Reports of technical issues while trying to buy tickets were rife as ever, with some reporting constantly being logged out from the site and frequent web page crashes. There were also issues with purchasing tickets using your phone.

Family and friends of those lucky enough to get tickets will take the places of the many graduates who missed out on the Donington Hall event.

Entry tickets are still up on the SU site but purchase attempts are met with the error message ‘Product sales limit reached’.

Those lucky enough to grab a dine and ball ticket did so at the hefty cost of £70 but will be treated to the likes of chicken liver parfait, lamb and sticky toffee pudding.

In defence of the decision to sell enough tickets for only a third of final years to attend the SU said: “Dine & Ball tickets sold out in record time. We have to operate a first-come-first-serve policy at all SU events so that all students stand a fair chance of attending.

“Following recent student feedback we now offer the +1 option, the website is up and running.”

Entry only tickets came at £37 for what has apparently been ‘recently dubbed the most exclusive venue in the region.’

The ‘most luxurious Grad Ball to date’ takes place on the 16th of June. It’s fine though – you can always pay to watch the live stream next door.