In the wake of the recent rise of ticket prices for AMC, Sub Board I, Inc. (SBI) felt an adjustment of the ticket convenience fee would be necessary.
SBI held its first board meeting of the semester on Tuesday in which it decided in a 12-1 vote to lower the convenience fee for tickets. SBI decided that ticket sales would be adjusted by 10 percent plus a $1 online charge.
A convenience fee is a charge that is acquired for the benefit of purchasing an item with a payment method that would not traditionally be used for such an item or service. In SBI’s case, convenience fees are applied to tickets.
Last year AMC changed its ticket pricing system to include sales a tax across select movie theater chains.
“A lot of the costs we absorb, we wanted to keep below all the places we go to like AMC Theater,” said SBI President Evan Chen.
The new ticket office surcharge that was voted on and implemented by the Board of Directors now places UB’s ticket office in line with ticketing industry standards, according to Chen.
Chen said the surcharge SBI now charges allows them to offset the expenses associated with providing a low cost ticketing service for student organizations.
“Since our goal is to meet our expenses only, our surcharge is far below the industry rate,” Chen said.
SA President Minahil Khan said this past June that bringing back an online convenience fee when buying tickets would increase sales.
“We wanted to follow standard ticket office procedures while [keeping] the cost low and it is lower than other convenience fees,” Chen said. “At a movie theater online it would be usually at least $2 roughly. Concerts on Ticketmaster can easily be more than that as well.”
The official approval of minutes will be decided at the next official meeting.
Ashley Inkumsah is a news desk editor and can be reached at ashley.inkumsah@ubspectrum.com.
