By Raylee Foster | Staff Writer
Some students could go their whole college experience without tickets to All-University Sing, a Baylor tradition since 1953, because of Baylor’s random lottery system and limited supply. Seniors getting ready to graduate are approaching their final opportunity to attend the performance, and should have priority for
ticket purchase.
Sing is performed in Waco Hall each year and only seats about 2,200 people. Families, faculty, Wacoans and students all try to attend the event, with a total 13,000 tickets sold.
Baylor’s overall enrollment is over 20,000 students. Those who perform are also required to buy tickets if they would like to stay and watch other performances. The student body alone could purchase every ticket and still have people who didn’t get a ticket, so why risk letting soon-to-be graduates miss this
milestone experience?
Sing tickets already have an early release for the student body, but, this should be switched to an early ticket release for seniors only — followed by the general public ticket release.
As a freshman, buying tickets to Sing was a stressful experience. There was constant refreshing of the page, waiting for my “place in line” and frantically clicking on performance dates to disappointingly be met by the message: “the ticket number you would like is not available.” I do believe freshmen want to attend the event just as badly as seniors, but freshmen have three more years to enter the lottery. Seniors do not. When it comes to milestone Baylor traditions like Sing, seniors should be treated special.
Not only would this ensure every Baylor student could attend a Sing performance, but it may even take stress off of other students
purchasing tickets.
Though the performers and performances change every year, the tradition of Sing does not. If a freshman cannot get a ticket this year, it would be frustrating, but if they knew they would be promised one their senior year, it would
be comforting.
Now, with 15,000 undergraduate students, there are roughly 3,750 seniors in a given year. This may be an unrealistic amount of tickets to section off considering the families, friends and other students who hope to go.
A different solution would be holding a dress rehearsal with seniors in the audience. This would give them an exclusive opportunity to experience Sing and cheer on their friends, and would also benefit the performers with an audience filled with classmates, sorority sisters, fraternity brothers or familiar faces from campus.
Logistically, 3,750 tickets may be too much to allot to a select group
of individuals.
However, there is currently a student-only ticket launch where each student is able to obtain three tickets maximum. This could be changed to a senior-only ticket launch where each person could only purchase
one ticket.
There are many ways to prioritize seniors, and being able to experience traditions are what build life long connections and memories to
your college.
Don’t let the students graduate without seeing the long-awaited Sing.
