School of Music should make attending concerts easier

Hundreds of music concerts are held at Northwestern each year, and each year, a large percentage of the audience is NU music students. One of the perks of being a music student is that, supposedly, you can attend many of those concerts at no charge.

But right now the School of Music has an inefficient and exploitative policy that states you must pick up your tickets, in person, at a different location, well in advance of the concert you want to attend.

Given the extremely busy schedules of students and the limited box office hours, it’s a foregone conclusion that many music students aren’t able to pick up tickets in advance and are forced to pay $5 for their tickets at the door.

That may not seem like a lot of money, but it adds up, and it amounts to an unfair tax on students by the School of Music. Given the huge sums of money that students already pay to attend NU, given that students are regularly required to attend several concerts per quarter for specific classes and given that these concerts are usually given by fellow student performers, no music student should have to pay for tickets simply because he or she could not afford to make a separate trip the day before a concert.

Instead, concerts should be treated like football games: Show your WildCARD, get swiped in. Music students already use their cards to get into practice rooms and classrooms. This should be no different. It’s important to note that not all concerts are designated as free for students; some, everyone has to pay for. But those that are called free should actually be free.

– Daniel GreenMusic junior