SPEC brings back lottery for Spring Fling floor passes over the weekend

The Social Planning and Events Committee has decided to bring back the lottery system for Spring Fling concert floor passes — for this weekend at least.

SPEC originally planned on hosting “flash sign ups” to sell floor passes until Sunday, but the giveaways will now only last until Thursday. Beginning on Friday and ending Sunday, anyone can enter the lottery for a chance at 150 spots to claim the last 300 tickets.

SPEC has decided to end the flash sign ups for floor passes “in response to considerations of equal access and stress,” the group wrote on the Spring Fling page on Facebook. Last year, all floor passes were given away through a lottery.

“We’re answering the desire for more fairness by offering a lottery system for the last few tickets,” SPEC Secretary Derek Standlee said in an email.

By Wednesday, SPEC recognized that some students were using “bots” to sign up for the Floor passes as soon as the forms opened. Wednesday’s form included an option to confirm that the entrant was human as well as a CAPTCHA field to verify, which were not on Tuesday’s form. Once floor passes were sold out on Wednesday, SPEC commented on its Facebook page: “Alright the form is closed! Those of you who used 'bots' to fill out the form, we caught you ...”

The last flash sign-up sale on Thursday will work the same as the other days this week. The first 50 people who fill out a form linked from a SPEC social media account will secure two floor passes. The forms over the last several days were closed in under a minute, with Wednesday’s form filled up in 46 seconds.

About 400 people agreed to preferring a lottery system in a user-generated poll posted on the Facebook event page, followed by about 230 responses for “Number of limbs you will give to Spec. Sometimes even first born children.”

Deputy News Editor Jennifer Wright contributed reporting.

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