Barnard SGA and General Studies Student Council have released separate resolutions about Spring Bacchanal. The resolution calls for the Bacchanal board to redistribute and refund all 4,000 tickets sold earlier this week for the concert. The board should then redistribute the tickets at no cost and in staggered blocks to students while still maintaining a cap on attendance. In a joint effort between several student government groups and the Activities Board at Columbia, the resolution ultimately aims to reduce the financial cost students faced in acquiring tickets to the concert. To help alleviate Bacchanal’s security costs, SGA and GSSC have agreed to pay $10,000 to the board. Read the full text of the resolution below.

Barnard’s Student Government Association (SGA) has put forth a resolution to address the various concerns that have been raised by students surrounding this year’s spring Bacchanal concert. The release of this year’s Bacchanal tickets and the notice of the cost of tickets were only received by a section of the student body. In addition, charging $7 per ticket and an additional Eventbrite fee further limited ticket sales to only those who could afford to buy a ticket. Students who either could not afford to purchase a ticket or who were not alerted to the opening of ticket sales were automatically excluded from attending Bacchanal. While we understand that Bacchanal is a limited entry event, this resolution provides an alternative in the spirit of community and fairness to every student who wishes to attend. Therefore, SGA urges the refund and staggered redistribution of all purchased tickets to this year’s Bacchanal so as to ensure that students across the four undergraduate colleges have equal opportunity to obtain the redistributed tickets at no cost to this undergraduate wide campus event. It is our hope that the Bacchanal Committee as well as other undergraduate student councils will move forward and act on this resolution. All questions should be emailed to the SGA Executive Board at sga@barnard.edu

SGA RESOLUTION REGARDING SPRING BACCHANAL 2015

WHEREAS Bacchanal is a well-attended event that has become a crucial part of the
undergraduate community at Columbia, with thousands of students attending each Spring;

WHEREAS Bacchanal has never before sold tickets to the student body, nor restricted access
for undergraduate students;

WHEREAS the decision to sell tickets to the student body was not known to the student body
until a very short time before the ticket sales began;

WHEREAS all 4,000 tickets available for sale were sold within the first day of ticket sales, and that there is a desire on campus for more tickets;

ACKNOWLEDGING that the Bacchanal Committee has had new constraints and
requirements placed upon them, including (but not limited to)

•The requirement to ticket the event,
•The event venue capacity limit of 4,000 students,
•The requirement to ensure that the event does not coincide with Days on Campus,
•The requirement to have “Lion Tamers” as active bystanders within the crowd,
•Increased booking difficulties due to the cancellation of Fall Bacchanal, and resultant loss of music industry trust,
•Increased security- and safety-focused measures at the event,
and that such constraints and requirements are likely to result in increased costs for the event, potentially exceeding the $106,000 that is allocated to Bacchanal by the Activities Board at Columbia;

LET IT BE RESOLVED that, the General Studies Student Council and Barnard SGA agree to cover their share, in ratio, of up to $10,000 in additional security and safety-related costs
for the Bacchanal event, under the following conditions:
• The 4,000 students who have purchased tickets to the event are refunded the money thatthey have paid for their tickets
• The 4,000 tickets will be re-released at a price of $0 to the student body in staggered blocks after March 22, 2015, with the times and quantities of each release advertised three days before the first release to the under- graduate student body
• Those who purchased a Bacchanal crew-neck sweater may receive a refund if they return their sweater
• If the final costs of the event exceed the Bacchanal allocation and revenues with the grant described above, the costs will be paid for by a five-year lien against the Bacchanal allocation in future years equal to the difference LET IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED that the two councils, in conjunction with ABC, will pursue further discussions with the Bacchanal Committee and relevant administrators to determine a sustainable plan for the success of future concerts, especially with respect to the scheduled date, the venue capacity limit, the costs of the event, and other logistical details

Signatories:

Activities Board at Columbia
Barnard Student Government Association
General Studies Student Council

Authors:

Tony Lee, President, ABC
Pascale Dugue, Vice President of Finance, SGA
Ian Elliot, Vice President of Finance, GSSC
Michael Li, Vice President of Finance, CCSC
Robert Ying, Vice President of Finance, ESC
Peter Bailinson, Student Body President, CCSC
Peter Nason, Student Body President, GSSC
Julia Qian, Student Body President, SGA
Brian Wu, Student Body President, ESC

Last Updated: March 12, 2015 9:45pm

ABC’s Statement:

This document explains and contains a resolution approved by the Activities Board atColumbia regarding this year’s Bacchanal Concert. I understand that there has been a large amount of confusion and emotion regarding the concert this year, and I hope thatthis press release can answer some big questions, although we will continue to work with Bacchanal and other student governing bodies to provide more information and hopefully solutions to our students.

As many of you know, Bacchanal charged prices for tickets this year. When Bacchanal requested money from ABC back in the spring, they made it clear that they would not be charging for tickets. They did end up charging tickets without discussing with us, and as a result, generated an addition $28,000 from students in ticket revenue. While we understand that Bacchanal chose to charge fees to cover increased costs such as security requirements and lack of discounts for artists stemming from the cancellation of the fall concert, as a governing board responsible for the allocation of student life fees, we have spoken with Bacchanal and determined that the priced tickets were an improper solicitation of funds. As a result, Bacchanal is planning to refund the full price of the ticket including service fees to all students after spring break. Bacchanal will also refund sweatshirt sales to those who wish to receive a refund.

Furthermore, we have spoken with Bacchanal and are requiring them to re-sell the tickets in staggered amounts at different times after Spring Break.

We understand that this will be disappointing to the current ticket holders (including 14 members of the ABC), and some will rightly believe that the ticket holders bought it fair and square, so it is not worth the confusion and hassle of reselling. I definitely understand that line of reasoning, and I myself woke up early so that I could go to Bacchanal in my last year at Columbia.

However, while the current ticket holders did nothing wrong, there was a great wrong done to the majority of students who were precluded not only by the gap, but also by the flawed promotion and execution of the ticket sales.

Because the sales were announced less than a day prior on a Sunday before midterm week, many students were unaware and unprepared to buy tickets. Because of the unexpected costs of the tickets, many students were unable to buy the tickets.

Because ESC, GSSC, and SGA received a blurb for their newsletter on the actual day of the ticket sales, on which tickets sold out in less than 12 hours, SEAS, GS, and Barnard students never received an official email notification of the sales like CC students.

Every single student on campus pays into our community student life fees, and this year, Bacchanal was given $106,000 under the express condition that like every year, everyone who wanted to enjoy the event, could enjoy the event.

While the 4,000 cap cannot be helped and is something we must work with, the vast majority of our community didn’t have a fair shot at getting a ticket. While the ticket holders bought their tickets fair and square, the composition and collection of ticket holders is the direct result of the faulty promotion and illegitimate pricing of these tickets.

The only way to comprehensively address this is to have a re-sale of free tickets that is sufficiently promoted. While this may make some ticket holders unhappy, we believe that resolving the unfairness and indignation suffered by students who did not even have a fair chance to get tickets for the largest community event of the year, is undoubtedly and unmistakably worth it. That is ABC’s decision, and Bacchanal is going through with the re-sale.

To give further detail of our resolution, we are currently working with GSSC and SGA to procure $10,000 to help Bacchanal cope with their increased security costs. However, our ultimate goal is to work with all four councils in giving all our students who paid student life fees a fair shot at attending Bacchanal by having the Securities Fund support Bacchanal with $10,000 for their increased security costs. We currently have the support of all four presidents and four VP Finances of the undergraduate councils, but we hope that we will have the full support of all four undergraduate councils in doing right by our community.

– ABC

GSSC’s Statement:

Today the General Studies Student Council (GSSC) passed a resolution addressing the concerns that have been raised by many Columbia students regarding the sales of tickets for the upcoming Bacchanal concert.

The GSSC in the spirit of fairness and community for all undergraduate students of Columbia University calls upon the Bacchanal Committee to refund the current ticket purchasers and redistribute the tickets in a more fair and equitable manner.

The GSSC has strong concerns with how the manner of ticket release, both the short notice and the cost of tickets, put many students at a considerable disadvantage. Many students received notification of the sale very late and some students did not receive notification at all. The Bacchanal committee also did not set aside tickets for low income students, thus pricing low income students out of the event. Since the concert is funded with student activity fee money, the GSSC is of the opinion that no student should ever be put at a disadvantage in regards to attending the event. Our position is that refunding and redistribution are the only viable options to rectify these issues. Therefore we request that this happen immediately in accordance with the agreement that was reached between the Bacchanal Committee, the four undergraduate councils and the ABC board last night. We believe that for there to be a future for this event, the Bacchanal Committee needs to honor its word and live up to the agreement that they made.

We understand that due to the new capacity constraints many students will be shut out from attending the event. We are however hopeful that the Bacchanal Committee, along with the other student councils will see that there is a need to redress the problems with the original ticket release and make arrangements for a more equitable ticket distribution.

It is our hope the Bacchanal Committee will immediately move forward with our request and take the appropriate steps to correct the concerns expressed by many members of the Columbia community. The spring concert is a very important event to all of the undergraduate community and we would hate to see the 2015 version anyway diminished by easily correctable errors in judgement.

Please address any questions to GSSCEBOARD@Columbia.edu