Students complain about Week 10 queue-jumps

Students have complained about unguaranteed queue-jump entries, queuing difficulties and inadequate Uni Express services during Neon nightclub’s JagerMonster ‘Easter Eggstravaganza’ night on Thursday Week 10, March 13.

Students were reported to have had their queue-jumps denied by the club and to have queued for hours despite paying for queue-jump tickets.

Though there were problems with crowded queues, JagerMonster Warwick claimed that its queue-jumps accounted for less than 40 percent of the club capacity.

John Matthew Choo, a first-year Politics and International Studies student, was one such customer who claimed to have his queue-jump declared ‘invalid’ by bouncers half an hour after the club opened. He said that he paid an extra £5 at the door to gain entry into the club.

He told the Boar: “They just said there wasn’t any point in having a Q-jump. My friend and I had to go all the way to the front and squeeze in.

“There were so many people so the police and bouncers were saying the Q-jumps were not valid. Obviously it isn’t [logical or okay]… but to be fair, there were lots of people. They should have planned it better.”

Jason Yek, a second-year Economics undergraduate who had bought queue-jumps for Mr Choo, was also disappointed as he told the Boar: “Since I got the ticket for him, he’s not paying me for it because it didn’t work.”

Steve Smith, owner of Neon and founder of Smack Leamington, however said: “It is not true that anyone with a queue jump ticket was made to pay again.

“We did have a handful of people attempt to gain entry to Neon with a Smack queue jump, and obviously they were told that those tickets were not valid for Neon.

“The club did not charge an extra £5 to any person who had a Neon queue jump ticket for the JagerMonster end of term party.”

Mr Yek himself arrived at the club entrance when doors opened and described the queue as “insane”. He claimed however that “it wasn’t crowded inside”.

He said that despite paying for a queue-jump, “there was no distinction between the usual Q-jump queue and normal queue. There was just one big queue with the cops constantly telling us to queue in a straight line, but people continued to cut in front of it.

“We weren’t jumping anything… It didn’t make sense at all. Terrible management as usual.”

Samara Mahbubani, second-year Politics undergraduate, also commented: “[My friends and I] all had queue-jumps but the lines were super badly organised so we didn’t know which line was which.

“We went and lined up [but] left because it was getting super confusing and out of hand, and then they told us to move from the middle of the line to the back. So we were like [whatever].”

Another Warwick student posted a Facebook complaint on the “absolutely appalling service provided by Uni Express” that night.

She said: “For a company that’s meant to guarantee a queue-jump, it’s not satisfactory when people without queue-jumps get entry before Uni Express tickets.

“Refusing to give refunds to those who had to wait for hours, were turned away, or were forced to go to other clubs in Leamington is not acceptable.”

She pointed towards other problems: the “dodgy” £1 increase of queue-jumps unknown to students, the ticket system which resulted in Neon allowing in Smack-allocated tickets, the overcrowded bus service, and the ‘sold-out’ Smack service which “wasn’t even half full”.

She suggested that tickets were oversold and said that it was Uni Express who should provide the refund and not Neon.

Mr Smith, however, denied that tickets were oversold saying: “This is a practise I do not condone under any circumstances.”

On the failure of Neon’s queuing system that night, he said: “We were asked to trial putting both queues in the car park area at the side of the club. The police felt that having everyone in one area would make marshalling easier.

He explained that it was the sheer volume of people in that area all at once which led to the breakdown of the queue and a crush at the car park: “During this period, the club were asked to stop letting anyone in, which in turn led to everyone waiting far longer than normal.”

Mr Smith said that in future he would aim to have Uni Express coaches staggered and to have club doors open earlier to avoid similar issues with queue build-ups. He also said that Neon would consider making certain events purely advance-ticket-only to limit the number of people turning up.

He added that “by way of an apology to all those who were disappointed”, there would be a free ticket-only JagerMonster event on Monday of Week 1, Term 3.