Sports ball tickets sell out in record time

All 900 tickets available for the University of Warwick’s annual sports ball sold out within two minutes of going on sale on Friday 3 May.

After the tickets were offered to members of the executive team in a pre-sale on Thursday 2 May, rumours developed on social media sites that the problems had occurred because the team had started bulk-buying tickets for their friends.

However, Natasha ‘Bam’ Cabral, sports officer at the Students’ Union (SU), dismissed these rumours, telling the Boar that only 300 tickets were reserved for Thursday’s pre-sale and that executive members were only allowed to purchase one ticket each.

There were more rumours saying a technical issue had caused the website to display that tickets were sold out.

However, Ms Cabral added: “At 12.02pm, all tickets had been put into baskets and were therefore ‘reserved’. However, due to over 1000 people being on the same page at the same time, getting to the payment page was understandably slow.”

In order to cover the incredibly high demand for this year’s event, the SU has negotiated an additional 360 places in an extra suite at the venue.

Those who added their names to the waiting list before 3pm on Friday 3 May are being offered these additional tickets first.

Extra tickets are being allocated once again on a ‘first-come, first-served’ basis and are restricted to one ticket per person. Anyone on the waiting list may purchase their ticket now from the SU website.

Around 100 remaining tickets will then be released for general sale at 12pm on Tuesday 7 May.

Ms Cabral called the event “the biggest sports ball ever”.

The ball is to take place at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel, and the ticket price of £48 includes wine on the tables, a meal, a casino in the side room and transport.

More information can be found here.