The Price is Right: Students used various ways for Howl tickets

By: Amy Reid and Veronica Stephen 

For the first time in its history, tickets for the Howl were completely sold out by the Thursday preceding the event. This led to some students getting creative with how they got in.

One student copied his ticket and sold the counterfeits to students, which the executives in the Utah State University Student Association didn’t find out until after the Howl was over.

“The fake tickets were brought to our attention when a student who had forged a ticket came into the Student Involvement and Leadership Office and asked to speak to Linda Zimmerman to apologize and asked to pay back the amount had he paid for a ticket,” said Madison Maners, the public relations and marketing director for USUSA.

The student that turned himself in was asked to volunteer at other USUSA events instead of paying the price of his ticket, Maners said.

“Having students volunteer will maybe help them see what goes on behind the scenes and why it’s important to abide by the system,” she said. “We’re hoping students, as we go through this learning curve, will appreciate more of what really goes on. It’s not just a dance, it’s not just a party, it really is an event with paid performers, paid entertainment for which students should be purchasing tickets.”

Only 6,000 tickets were available for the Howl due to fire and safety codes. After they sold out, people turned to Facebook and KSL to purchase them, and as the day of the event approached, many started selling and buying tickets at higher-than-average prices.

Wendy Andreason, a senior majoring in accounting, was originally planning on going to the Howl, but when she saw how much people were willing to spend for tickets, she changed her mind.

“A friend and I were on Yik Yak Thursday night and there was a post of someone selling his tickets to a BYU student for $120 on KSL,” Andreason said. “After we discussed it, we decided why not to try it. It was a win-win — either we make some extra money or we go to The Howl.”

Andreason had two tickets and was able to sell one for $85 and the other for $50, turning a $115 profit. She said she would have liked to see the hypnotist, but the money was too tempting.

“Let’s be honest, being a student in college means the money definitely won out,” she said.

Even though USUSA Executive Council capped the number of tickets, some students were still disappointed about how crowded the Howl was.

“This year was terrible because no one could get into the dance,” said Asfand Khan, a sophomore majoring in biology.

While ticket numbers probably won’t change in the future, the ticketing system might.

After the copies this year, USUSA Executive Council is discussing switching to a scanned ticket system for the Howl in years to come.

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