One by one, students inched closer to the Stephen C. O’Connell Center to get free tickets to see One Republic and TeamMate in concert.
Tickets to the concert, which is sponsored by Student Government Productions, went became available two hours earlier than expected and “sold out” a half-hour before the University Box Office was supposed to close, said Renee Musson, assistant director of the O’Connell Center.
Tickets went on sale at 10 a.m. and had all been issued by 5 p.m., she said.
Daniel Levin, SGP chairman, said the box office contacted him to ask if they could release the tickets early because the line was longer than expected.
“That was just logistics,” said the 21-year-old UF industrial and systems engineering senior. “It was kind of an on-the-fly call that the O’Dome and I made.”
The Career Showcase also took place at the O’Connell Center on Tuesday, and Levin said the University Box Office didn’t want to disturb job-seekers.
Samantha Chambless, a 21-year-old psychology senior, said she was upset the box office started handing tickets out early.
“They had sold out of the floor seats when I got here,” she said.
The concert has been in the works since April, when truthLIVE, the organization behind the anti-tobacco Truth campaign, reached out to SGP to have a concert at UF, Levin said.
“We ended up helping them by paying $35,000,” he said. “That’s basically for the venue, and we also paid for marketing.”
A total of 5,560 tickets were given out for the concert, which is scheduled for Oct. 10 at 7:30 p.m, Musson said.
“We are at the total capacity in the way that the production is set up now,” she said. “If they do decide to make some changes, that, of course, will change.”
A version of this story ran on page 4 on 10/2/2013 under the headline "One Republic concert ‘sells out’ with early SGP ticket release"
