This past Saturday morning, a friend and I decided to join the masses and wait in line for student tickets to see the White Oak Dance Project. Perhaps it was my lack of faith in the average Dartmouth student's awareness of campus programming or my belief in the ability of my peers to act with integrity and justice that left me unprepared for the morning ahead. Or, maybe it was my anticipation of efficient and thorough crowd control by the Hopkins Center staff that misguided me. Regardless of my reasoning, I could not have anticipated the frustrating and somewhat disappointing experience that was to come.
With vouchers given out too late to have any real affect on the flux of the line, late-comers who casually joined their friends already on line and a curious and under-advertised "one student, two IDs" policy, the lesson was there for all those who'd managed to get out of bed to learn it: playing by the rules often means losing the game. Cheat others and go to the head of the line; take your place in line and pay for it.
"It's a dog-eat-dog world. It's war. You do what you have to do. Welcome to America," said one of the line-cutters. It was the kind of statement I had expected to hear from a crazed parent holding a dismembered Tickle Me Elmo doll on Christmas Eve. To hear this from a fellow student was, to say the least, disconcerting. And, if those of us who passed by our friends and joined the back of the line were looking for more reassuring sound bites from the Hop staff, we did not receive any that day.
"I just wanted to prepare you all that there are people ahead of you who are just a little bit luckier today," Susan Chandler, Hop Outreach Coordinator, said. Or a little bit sleazier, I thought.
"You are clearly not living right. I think you've made some karmic mistake," Hop Director of Marketing and Publicity Rolf Olsen later added.
Somehow, this was not quite the positive reassurance I was looking for either. Okay, I'm an idealist, perhaps even somewhat naive, but am I really a victim of bad karma? Am I destined to pay twice as much for everything? To have worse seats? To generally lose out? If so, I suppose I should thank the students and staff involved in Saturday's Hop debacle. It is always better to know this kind of thing early on in life. But somehow, I do not believe that fate was the sole explanation for what happened on Saturday. Behind concepts like karma and fate lie individuals who make choices and have responsibilities.
Despite the "courteous" and frequent reminders that those of us wrapped around the corridor near Paddock Library were in a "danger zone" in terms of obtaining tickets, most students cared enough about the event that they chose to stay in line until the last vouchers were distributed.
In the end, after the 400 student-priced tickets had sold, each student willing to pay the doubled price for their integrity was able to purchase a ticket. Many decided the price was too high and left without them, but I, and a few dozen others, ultimately recognized the opportunity to see this performance as an extraordinary one. I still do not regret this decision and, after talking to a number of Hopkins Center administrators, I anticipate that it will be amazing. I only wish that the ticketing could have been handled in a more equitable fashion.
"We do have plans to deal with problems [in ticketing] as they come up, but that has everything to do with our expectation of how people will behave," Hop Program Director Margaret Lawrence said.
Obviously the Hop staff shared some of my original faith in the ability of Dartmouth students to police themselves in line. And, while I do not wish the Hopkins Center "bad karma," I do have a few tangible suggestions for the future.
I understand that the motivation of the Center's administration in creating a ticketing policy was benign in nature and that it was necessary to limit the number of half-priced tickets because of the high financial risks of the event. However, I do not believe students who are not physically present in line should be entitled to the same discounted price as those who come out and stand in the queue.
Granted, some students will always be working, some will be away, but these students should not be privileged financially over those actually in line. If a student wanted to attend the performance with a friend or date, those two individuals should have planned to stand in line together. Or, the one who wasn't there should have paid $50.00 rather than $25.00. Also, vouchers should have been given out earlier to students in order to control the line.
Though the Hop staff may not have made the best choices as to how ticket distribution should be handled, students should also not have been absolved of their responsibility to act in a fair and civilized manner. At this point, it is impossible to prove who did and did not cheat the other people in line -- impossible to prove who among us took the kindergarten lesson of "no cutting" to heart and who conveniently forgot it, at a hefty profit of $25.00 a ticket. While the Hopkins Center staff should surely remember the lessons of Saturday's sale should Dartmouth be lucky enough to hold a similar event in the future, they will never be the Line Gestapo. It is up to each of us to decide how far we will bend or break the rules to get ahead.
