By Ruth Gibson
Disappointing ticket sales for last Friday’s Big Comedy night saw YUSU forced to cut prices in a bid to tempt more students to attend.
The show was arranged in a joint effort by YUSU and the University’s Commercial Services to fill a supposed gap in the market for comedy events, inspired by the likes of its more successful predecessors held during previous Freshers’ Weeks.
Comedy duo Ian Peacock and Ed Gamble, famed initially for their series of “crude, loud and bladder-poppingly funny” podcasts, failed to entice crowds to the comedy club-style event thrown in the dining hall of the Roger Kirk Centre.
Despite the promise of a free drink on arrival and pre-paid entry into Salvation, the attempt to give students “one last breather before deadlines” backfired, seeing a worrying lack of interest from prospective attendees.
This put YUSU in the embarrassing position of being forced to cut ticket prices to £6.50 from an original £8.50, then admit further defeat by offering free tickets to members of most societies.
Democracy & Services Officer Dan Walker explained that the comedy night was a “proof-of-concept event to showcase what can actually be achieved in the Roger Kirk Centre, a notoriously difficult venue to run.” He says that, in terms of quality, the event was a success.
“Ticket sales were slower than expected,” Walker admitted, “quite probably due to the event being close to the end of term, coming right after a number of big events including YUSU elections and Fusion, competing with a sell-out night of York Student Cinema and also falling on the same weekend as the multi-college trip to Amsterdam [that] we were sadly unaware of at the time of booking.”
He also explained the ticket price changes, saying “as the event drew close we dropped the ticket price to stimulate sales and also chose to invite elected representatives of the Union along as a thank-you for investing large amounts of their personal time to benefit the student experience.”
It is understood that all YUSU staff and sabbs paid for the event in full.
Reports from the night, however, gave the impression that, in spite of disheartening ticket sales, the show was very well received by those who did attend, although only around half of the seats were filled at peak times.
It remains to be seen whether or not events of this nature will be held in the Roger Kirk Centre in future.