Spring Weekend tickets will go on sale Monday, April 15 at 8 a.m., but in the event of a crash, sales might conflict with pre-registration for rising seniors the next morning, Tuesday, April 16. The Brown Marketplace website has crashed on the first day of ticket sales for the last three years.
The Brown Concert Agency is aware of this conflict and has been working to prevent it, wrote Emma Ramadan ’13, booking chair for the BCA, in an email to The Herald.
“If a crash happens, we would ideally be able to solve the problem and get sales back up again on Monday,” Ramadan wrote. She wrote that the agency’s new system will be more secure than the system used in years past and will identify hacking and other problems more accurately. “If a situation arises where ticket sales do have to be pushed back to Tuesday, we will probably push them back to a later time like 8:30 a.m.,” she wrote.
She added that even if Spring Weekend tickets and pre-registration were to happen at the same time, the short time it takes to register a cart on Banner would not interfere with the ticket-buying process.
“Realistically, a student shouldn’t have a problem doing both,” she said.
The Office of the Registrar does not have plans to change the timing of pre-registration. “We were not aware of this issue, nor is it something that we would consider altering our schedule (for),” wrote University Registrar Robert Fitzgerald in an email to The Herald. He wrote that registration happens at the same time every year, so the BCA would have to find a solution if the conflict became an issue. He added that he realized Spring Weekend was very important for many students, but he “could not compromise the logistics of a widespread academic-related activity.”
Some students are not worried about the potential overlap, while others have expressed some concern.
“I haven’t thought about pre-registration yet, but if it happens at the same time (as ticket sales), I would pre-register first,” said Shari Chase ’14.
Aniqa Anwar ’14 said it would be difficult to choose between the two. “I would have to prioritize, and I would choose to get tickets,” she said.
“I can definitely see why this would be a problem for many Brown students,” said Sahir Zaveri ’14. “But I can’t remember the last time I ... pre-registered for a class.”
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