RPC sells out Esperanza tickets within one week

By Andrew Ta     11/12/13 6:00pm

The 1,705 tickets for Esperanza 2013: "A Night of Fire and Ice" sold out in under one week, Rice Program Council President Aisha Jeeva said.

"[In] 24 hours, we sold half [of the tickets]," Aisha, a Martel College junior, said. "It was about the same [amount of time to sell out] as last year."

Jeeva said a campuswide survey after last year's Esperanza indicated that an on-campus location was a major reason for tickets selling out.

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"The biggest feedback was that [having it] on-campus was good," Jeeva said. "We worked really hard to bring it back on campus this year, and obviously there isn't a venue on campus that's big enough to hold [this] kind of event."

According to Jeeva, RPC will strive to keep Esperanza on campus for future years.

"Since it seems like that's what students want, it is definitely our goal ... if it is within our means," Jeeva said. "It was very expensive. We were lucky that [a venue] was already going to be on campus for the Baker Institute events."

Jeeva said logistics worked out such that costs were minimized for RPC.

"We worked a lot with Alumni Affairs to keep the tent up because they're using it for an event on Friday, so we're paying to keep it up for an extra day until Saturday," Jeeva said.

Jeeva said that despite only paying for an extra day, RPC was not making a profit from ticket sales.

"We're not making money off Esperanza," Jeeva said. "We're covering our costs. We worked out our budget so that we would be able to break even. All of the tickets had to be sold [and] all of the sales are going directly to covering the costs, especially the cost of the tent."

Jeeva said that although people are still looking to buy tickets, ticket scalping did not seem to be too large of an issue.

 "For the most part, it seems like most people are keeping their tickets," Jeeva said. "It's kind of out of our hands. We're not handling the actual reselling of the tickets." 

McMurtry College junior Da Yae Jeong said she wished there were more tickets available.

"After Centennial last year, a lot of people are interested in going," Jeong said. "Maybe [RPC] could even sell the tickets at two different times so people who are initially unsure if they want to go or not won't miss out."

Sid Richardson College freshman Connie Do said that when she decided to go to Esperanza, tickets had already sold out.

"I either wish there were more tickets available or that the process to buy them off of people was a bit more formal," Do said. "I would really like to go."

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