BY LUCAS VOSS
Amidst a pandemic, nightclub venues are unable to reopen due to the difficulties in operating with sufficient social distancing measures. Despite the fear of permanent closures in the industry, event ticket representatives continue to sell tickets to unsuspecting students.
After the exam results chaos for the class of 2020, the incoming students who secured a university place this year will be excited to experience the much anticipated ‘freshers week’. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister announced nightclubs will remain closed for the foreseeable future.
UCAS data in June showed deferred entry is 0.7 percent lower than the previous year. With grade inflation supporting an increased intake of university students across the UK this academic year, this provides a continued market for selling freshers event tickets… for non-existent events.
The University of Plymouth Freshers 2020/2021 group, is an unofficial freshers Facebook group with no direct affiliation to the University of Plymouth or Student’s Union. The group admins live far from Plymouth, based in London, Manchester, and Halifax. With almost forty posts for a UV Neon Rave by the group and ticket representatives in recent weeks, the morality of these actions is questionable. If nightclubs have no potential opening date, why are tickets still being sold?
At the time of writing, tickets remain live for sale on the events website Fatsoma, with the UV Neon Rave due to commence on September 20 at Pryzm. However, representatives claim tickets will be valid whenever the event takes place as they are ‘COVID secure’. Doubt is cast upon this by Peter Marks, Chief Executive of The Deltic Group, raising fears that the nightclub could shut if late night venues cannot reopen soon or sufficient financial support be provided by the government. The Deltic Group is the UK’s largest operator of late night bars and clubs, with 53 venues across the country including Pryzm at the Barbican Leisure Park.
The University of Plymouth Student’s Union have previously worked with Przym for student nights, such as Quids In Student Mondays. Although currently the UPSU is not working with any nightclubs, as they are unable to operate under government guidance at this time.
While such venues are currently not operating, some students have questioned why the tickets are being advertised. Second year student Gillian Cooper commented on one of the Facebook posts to exclaim her shock that they are “still pushing this seeing as there is no guarantee that the clubs will be open”. Cooper attended similar large scale events in freshers last year and believes they are “great in normal circumstances”. Speaking to Plymouth Gazette on the matter, Cooper added:
In the current circumstances, I do not believe that it is appropriate as it gives students the impression that things will be like normal when they are back at uni. Whereas, in actual fact that’s not the case. It could be classed as false advertisement if somebody decided to take it further.
There [were] loads of posts advertising these events when I commented on this post. I know a lot of people [who have] purchased tickets to the UV Neon rave and other events. A couple of people mentioned that they are not sure if they would get refunds from events.
Gillian Cooper, Second Year University of Plymouth Student
UPSU has warned students on their website “that some organisations outside of the SU and University are promoting ‘Freshers’ events and we strongly advise students not to purchase tickets for any large scale events that are being promoted across Plymouth; under current government restrictions, these events will not be able to take place”.
Cooper believes that advice and guidance on these discouraged events would be “incredibly helpful” to “stop confusion” among students. Cooper explained that “it would also allow students to read through the guidance and make their own opinions. The information I have read suggests that these events will not be taking place and so to keep advertising them is really wrong and should not be allowed to happen.”
Plymouth Gazette asked UPSU why they are not taking more proactive action at this time to have the ticket reps’ posts removed, before more University of Plymouth students fall victim to purchasing tickets to events that may never take place. The Director of Student Experience responded:
UPSU is not affiliated with any nightclubs in the city at this current time, inline with the government’s COVID-19 roadmap taskforces guidance it would not be acceptable to be associated with venues that are unable to operate at this stage. We look forward to them and our nightclub opening again and recognise the important social experience that our members are missing by not having these late night venues.
We encourage students to think very carefully about purchasing tickets to events that claim to ‘Covid Ticket Protection’ and are hosted in venues that are currently not able to operate in line with government guidance. We would like our members to look to official Students’ Union and University pages for official events hosted on upsu.com.
Oli Horne, UPSU Director of Student Experience
For official events, you can visit the UPSU website for the planned virtual freshers events.