It is not for lack of tickets that Ray Serrano '07 won't be attending Saturday's lecture by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. Rather, following the implementation of a new online ticket distribution system, Serrano said he feels deprived of a "great bonding experience" - camping out on the Main Green like he did last year to see former President Bill Clinton.
"I was disappointed when I saw that it was online ticketing and not camping out again," Serrano said. "If I thought we were going to have to wait for tickets, I probably would have done it again."
A new online system - accessible through a ticket reservation Web site - was developed by a team including members from Computing and Information Services and the Office of Public Affairs and University Relations, said Cynthia Schwartz, director of University events.
The new method was put in place to prevent a repeat of the long lines - which included tents pitched on the Main Green - prior to the distribution of tickets to Bill Clinton's lecture last year, said Michael Chapman, vice president for public affairs and University relations.
"Last year when President Clinton came here, we handed out tickets in sort of the old-fashioned way," Chapman said. "There were some frustrations about that ticket distribution system."
Following the Bill Clinton lecture, the Office of the President asked the public affairs office to explore more efficient ways to distribute tickets to large events on campus, Chapman said. Schwartz and her staff wanted to develop a way of reserving tickets online, an idea that led them to work with members of the Office of Web Communications and CIS, Chapman added.
"A lot of people really wanted (the tickets) and we just wanted to bring our ticket distribution into the 21st century for big events," Chapman said.
The new distribution system was also designed to ensure a fair process for all members of the Brown community, Schwartz said. Last year, graduate students and medical students were not all able to acquire Bill Clinton tickets due to family obligations, jobs or hospital shifts during the time tickets were being distributed.
"One of the things that we were trying to do was make the ticket system fair to the entire Brown family, and that was another incentive for putting it online," Schwartz said. "We had a very good turnout from the Graduate School and the Medical School (this year)."
Administrators said they have not encountered any opposition to the changes, nor have they received any negative feedback regarding the new ticket distribution method.
"From everything we have heard, the online system worked incredibly well," said Darrell West, professor of political science and director of the Taubman Center, one of the co-sponsors of the Hillary Clinton lecture.
At 6 a.m. on Friday, March 17, when ticket reservations could first be made, no technological troubles were experienced or reported.
"I don't think people were seeing bad performance," said John Spadaro, director of systems and services for CIS. "We load-tested it to make sure that we could serve out hundreds of tickets in a small time and that's, in fact, what happened." He added CIS staff members were available throughout the reservation process to correct any problems that may have occurred.
Two web communications officials designed the front page and frequently-asked-questions section of the ticket reservation Web site, Schwartz said.
The site was created with "a relatively small application that used a lot of infrastructure that we already have in place," Spadaro said. For example, he said, there are already applications created to confirm that individuals logging onto the system are either faculty, staff or students, and this application can differentiate among the three groups to make sure the appropriate e-mails are sent out to individuals reserving tickets.
"It was pretty simple," Spadaro said. "We authorize to make sure that you are in a group that could get a ticket, then put you into a database so you couldn't get two tickets and then printed a letter."
Chapman and Schwartz said the process was tested rigorously before launching, making sure that community members could choose to pick up tickets or have them sent via campus mail.
Originally, only 2,500 tickets were available for reservation, Chapman said. However, because of the great demand to see Hillary Clinton, "we decided to reconfigure the stage set-up in Meehan (Auditorium) and that freed up an additional 1,000 tickets," he added.
Out of 3,500 tickets reserved, 1,077 have been sent through campus mail, while the majority of those reserving tickets opted to pick them up at Sayles Hall.
Ticket pick-up in Sayles began at 11 a.m. on Monday, April 3rd, and there had been no lines for pick-up as of Monday afternoon, Schwartz said, adding that tickets being delivered by campus mail were sent out in bright yellow envelopes on Monday afternoon. The decision to distribute the tickets via campus mail later in the day was intended to lower the chances of the tickets becoming lost, Chapman said.
Several undergraduate students voiced their support for the new ticket system. Vance Monet '08 said he found the process for the Bill Clinton lecture last year to be very frustrating. Monet had woken up especially early to ensure that he would receive a ticket and was annoyed to see fellow students cutting the line after he had waited for hours.
"You get over it, obviously, but, just for that time period, it's nothing but frustration when you see people act as if they don't know what's going on or they just take advantage of the fact that there is such a long line," Monet said.
Gabe Prestol '07 also waited for several hours for his ticket to the Bill Clinton lecture last year. Though he had fun camping out with his friends, he believes it is much more convenient to go online and decide the means of ticket delivery. "I think this is a much more effective method, definitely, of giving out tickets," Prestol said.
