Student ticket status remains unresolved

A flicker of hope flashed across Facebook and Twitter Wednesday, after re-tweets and shares spread a Student Government (SG) link offering students a chance to sign up for standby tickets to the NBC Republican National Debate being held on campus Monday.

"Allocation for tickets is still to be determined and you will be contacted via phone or email if you are selected as one of the recipients," the form said when posted around 1:45 p.m. "NOTE: If you submit your information in this form, you may be subject to a background check by the United States Secret Service."

Yet, before 2:30 p.m., the form said, "Oops! Something went wrong. The form ‘Google Form' is no longer accepting responses," and the posts on Facebook and Twitter were deleted.

SG Associate Director of Communications Vincent DeFrancesco said the link was posted prematurely, and that the tickets would not be offered at that time.

"What happened was that there was a bit of a miscommunication," he said. "We put up the link in anticipation that we would have some standby positions available for students. If there were any seats in the theater shortly before the debate that were empty, we would randomly choose one of the standbys and allow them to come in if the person the ticket was reserved for didn't show up. However, there was a miscommunication and we're not sure we will have any standby positions available for students."

DeFrancesco said SG had no student tickets to offer the public as of Wednesday,

At 3:20 p.m. Wednesday, SG Director of Governmental Affairs Lindsay Lewis sent an email to all SG senators

offering them possible standby seats at the debate.

"I have been asked to provide names of students that would be available Monday night as standbys for seats inside the debate," she wrote. "Due to time sensitivity I am going to submit the names of all senators...Again, this is only standby, so this is NOT a guarantee for a ticket, but we need to have students on  standby in case people do not show up and there are seats to fill."

USF spokeswoman Lara Wade-Martinez said that while there would be an unknown number of tickets available for students, the recipients would be preselected.

"We need to make sure that whatever tickets we have go to students who can be cleared through security and all that kind of good stuff," she said. "We're working with Student Government to make sure the tickets are distributed appropriately. We just need to make sure we do the right thing and (the students) are vetted appropriately."

Wade-Martinez could not comment on what a security screening process would entail. She said the number of available tickets would remain unknown until NBC's setup for the debate is complete.

"I think (SG) thought they'd have more time and be able to distribute tickets in a more open forum, but because of the short amount of time we're going to have to get these tickets distributed and get these seats filled, I think we're going to have to do it in a more streamlined way, which is why I think they ended up taking (the post) down," Wade-Martinez said.

The process by which students would be selected, she said, has yet to be determined.

For those unable to attend, a watchparty hosted by SG will be set up in a tent outside the theater in the MLK Plaza. An online article on ABC Action News said the watch party would cost $20,000.

Lewis said a final cost estimate is not available, but that the money comes from an auxiliary account for special

events that is not Activities and Service-fee-funded. Costs would be incurred from the tent, food and power supply for the evening.

"Everything costs something," she said.