Economics Summit sells out in record time

**Internal tickets for the 2013 Warwick Economics Summit sold out in just 12 minutes – a new Students’ Union (SU) record for a student-run event. **

Speakers at the upcoming Summit, on the weekend February 15-17, include secretary of state for business, innovation and skills Vince Cable, who will deliver the keynote speech.

Demand for the 200 tickets reserved for Warwick students was so overwhelming it caused the SU website to crash when it opened sales at 7pm on Friday 25 January.

According to the SU, approximately 900 people visited the ticket page that day.

Once the problems were resolved, the tickets sold out in only 12 minutes.

That time has also broken the previous record of 57 minutes for internal ticket sales set by last year’s Summit.

Harry Brooks, one of the two co-ordinators of this year’s Summit, said that the organising team was “absolutely delighted to have the likes of Vince Cable and Sir Bob Kerslake speaking at the event”.

Deputy talks co-ordinator Patrick Mackenzie was delighted with the high level of interest from Warwick students this year.

He said: “After nearly 12 months of planning, it’s great to see the Summit is more popular than ever. It’s great to have a diverse range of speakers, from policy makers to academia.”
Sir Bob Kerslake, head of the UK Civil Service and a Warwick alumnus, will speak on the Saturday of the Summit.

So far, 14 world-leading figures in economics, politics, development and finance have been confirmed as speakers, including secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development Supachai Panitchpakdi.

Additionally, shadow chancellor Ed Balls and president of the European Commission Jose Manuel will record video messages to be shown at the Summit, according to its PR co-ordinator Tom Newham.

With regards to the line-up of speakers, Harry Brooks commented: “We’ve put a huge amount of hard work into this year’s Summit and we hope that it will prove to be the biggest and the best event yet.”

Warwick students who managed to obtain a ticket have full access to all three days of talks, seminars, and networking, with sponsors such as RBS.

There will also be a traditional black tie Summit ball of which the theme this year is “Great Gatsby” where a two-course dinner will be served.

The Summit will also provide students with the opportunity to meet others from around the world, who in some years have come from as far away as The Gambia, in West Africa.

Inevitably, the unprecedented level of internal interest in this year’s Summit has led to disappointment among the many students who failed to get a ticket.

Second-year PPE student Chloe Honeybourne described how she was sat at her computer at 7pm, pressing the buy button “countless times”.

She added: “I’m very upset that I’ve missed out [on going to the Summit] for two consecutive years. Maybe they should expand the ticket numbers from 200.”