The 500 priority student tickets for Bernie Sanders’ “Future To Believe in Rally” were gone before 11 a.m. Monday.
The Student Association started giving out tickets in its third floor Student Union office around 10:15 a.m. – nearly an hour before it was originally scheduled to – because the long line was becoming a safety hazard, said SA Entertainment Coordinator Marc Rosenblitt.
Tickets were originally not supposed to be given out until 11 a.m. Some students had been waiting in line outside the SA office since 6:30 a.m.
Rosenblitt said SA decided to open the doors early because there were already 500 students in line by 10 a.m. and SA didn’t want the line to get any longer knowing it would run out.
The priority tickets did not guarantee a seat to Sanders' rally, but would allow students to bypass the general admission line.
About 200 students were turned away from the SA office when the tickets ran out and some of them headed to Alumni Arena to wait in the general admission line.
Doors open for general admission at 4 p.m. Sanders will speak at 7 p.m.
Gabriela Julia is the managing editor and can be reached at gabriela.julia@ubspectrum.com. Follow her on Twitter at @gabrielaajulia.