Union employees hit freshers’ Facebook groups yesterday urging them to buy the freshers’ week Master Pass, warning that it might sell out with 500 remaining.
With around 1500 said to have been sold since the 23rd and less than a fortnight until freshers’ week events get underway, there are still question marks over the pricing, with students concerned that SUSU appears to be overcharging freshers for the “one pass to rule them all.”
The freshers band for Southampton is £95 ???????????? Do they think we're made of money?!
— Ashleigh Evans ()
Keen-eyed students noticed early on that picking events that didn’t clash couldn’t add up to the £151 RRP the Union claimed. Now that some events including the Bournemouth trip and the Freshers’ Ball Pre-Party have been fully booked, the £95 cost of the Master Pass looks even worse value, before taking into account other events with strictly limited capacity. Depending on JCR and also on international or home student status, even the keenest fresher should consider buying individual tickets, despite assurances by Union President David Gilani:
RRP (i.e. what it would cost for a student to go to an event individually each night) is £151. So this makes them a big saving.
The Soton Tab contacted David, who told us:
The Master Pass is the perfect ticket for students to immerse themselves in the Freshers experience – allowing you to choose all the events you want to attend. As a cherry on top, we’ll also be giving away some free drinks across the week itself. For anyone who wants to create their own schedule, individual tickets for events will be on sale on Monday 16th September.
While the promise of some free drinks will sweeten the deal, this certainly won’t appease everyone. New students suffering with a fear of missing out aren’t realising that the Master Pass is realistically not going to be the best ticket for everyone, particularly if spending the majority of two weeks in pubs and clubs isn’t your idea of a good time.
i live a small distance from campus, i don't like binge drinking, i rarely drink self, so why should I pay £95 for freshers week? move man.
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For me, while glad that David Gilani and the Union are responding to students’ concerns, I’d like to see them putting less emphasis on selling the Master Pass to as many students as possible and making it much clearer what your money gets you. Overpaying for freshers’ week events will only leave a sour taste in the mouth for new students and the last thing I want to see is people having a distrust for SUSU before they’ve even started lectures.
I’m a strong believer in SUSU, being a union councillor and as involved as I have the time to be, so I would hate to see people put off our Union. I personally like to eat in the café and drink in the bars not only because I like spending time there, but also because it keeps students employed. It also enables SUSU to provide invaluable resources such as the Advice Centre which many, including myself, rely on when they find themselves in difficult situations during their time at university. Many also depend on SUSU to represent them to the University in academic matters – crucial work which all students should appreciate.
The Union needs to urgently get its act together with freshers’ week, making it clear what the Master Pass includes and not trying to panic freshers into buying the expensive ticket when for many it will be poor value, otherwise SUSU risk doing the standing of the union irrevocable harm in the eyes of new students.
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£95 is extortionate. I paid £25 for my halls fresher band and then £20/25 for my fresher ball ticket. That had me out nearly every night, and meant I could pick where I went and just pay on the night.
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Hey Name,
£95 would be a lot of money for what you got for your Freshers’ Experience… but students now are getting SO much more than that! The Halls events are much bigger; we’re showing Freshers’ all around Southampton so that they can see what a fantastic city for nightlife we have; there are huge acts; pub crawls; AND a whole new set of variety events that we haven’t really been able to put on before: Pot Luck – http://blogs.susu.org/sabbs/files/2013/09/potluck-web.jpg
For students that don’t want that massive variety of events, we’re still putting individual tickets on sale on Monday 16th. And for students that weren’t sure they’d be able to afford it, we offered a split payment option and will be saving some spaces for events when students get here.
This Master Pass gives students a whole level of choice which we haven’t been able to do before, with great value, and Freshers’ Week still has the inclusiveness that only a Students’ Union cares about.
Cheers for reading. If you want to hear about what events we’re doing for 2nd & 3rd years then get in touch with me on
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you’re forcing them to pay for stuff they don’t necessarily want by only selling the master pass initially without the option to buy tickets for many of the events separately. Also you’re going to sell way over the capacity of the cube, causing everyone to have a terrible time as no one can get in or out of the dancefloor. The cube will be dead by november, same as last year. Susu is so out of touch it’s unbelievable
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David are you absolutely clueless, £95 is extortionate for a student. Forcing them to go out every night to get even a fraction of their moneys worth. Doesn’t account for their sports teams socials or anything. Also if they are truely having a hardcore experience, then they will need a night off to recover. Please stop wasting our time.
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The prices for last year (£25 for the Monte band and £25 for the freshers ball) were a rip off as it is… can’t believe they have jacked up prices to £95! The chances of one person actually going to all these events is extremely slim – they’ll soon discover other clubs/pubs they want to go to – and a total waste of money.
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A sentiment shared I’m sure by a number of students last year soon to be joined by a number of students this year
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As a former JCR I have written and read previous events budgets and run some fairly big nights myself but looking at the freshers week offering this year, yes SUSU has done what appears to be an excellent job offering a wide variety of events to students and possibly some of the best options in my time at Southampton. However from the moment the price tag of the master pass was released my heart sank. There was no way SUSU could offer value for money on these events and it will be a huge let down for all the new freshers YET AGAIN!
Every year SUSU makes about 4 or 5 blinding mistakes which makes me wonder whether our events team have ever actually been to one of there own events. From the flooring at the blood rain at Halloween to the hiring Beardyman to do a drum and Bass set a couple of years ago at the Freshers ball. Last year it was simply the lack of signage to the second venue at the freshers ball. I even remember going to an event in the halls when no one had remembered to hire a DJ. £95 is yet another HUGE mistake by our events team and one that I am sure will show in the number of students who abandon the Cube for clubs like Jesters. They’ve been around for nearly 3 decades now and if SUSU continues its string of epic mistakes then they will be here for many years to come.
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Your spending £9k a year for a degree,and your bitching about £95 for a solid two weeks of partying? With headliners for the ball like grandmaster flash/P money e.t.c? I came to soton 2 years ago and remember I paid a similar amount for far far less (back then you paid for individual events,inc the ones in town, so it stacked up). Its really not a bad deal people.
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I don’t know how many events you paid for or where you went but as I said I was a member of the JCR 2 years ago as it happens and as I said I don’t now where you went in town but I am baffled as to how you spent £95 on entry. As I said in my comment I think the line up this year is brilliant couldn’t really fault it! There was the option to buy entry to multiple events all be it not the master pass as it currently stands but you could get JCR passes which allowed entry to all the Halls events in the halls & in town as well as cube nights… That if memory serves cost £25 but didn’t include the freshers balls which was another £25.
While these comments should reflect the debate on both sides atleast get the numbers right
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Its weird how the last two years of freshers have been so anti the union. It used to be awesome a couple of years back when students supported it, now its dead because of all the hate.
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Definitely isn’t anything new mate, even when I was a fresher it was a good few years since the cube had any life on a friday night. Nothing to do with hate.
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I’ve been around long enough to remember when the queue for Kinki on Friday nights was like the bunfight. Not sure whether it’s because the product has changed or the customers have but freshers’ week is surely the time to establish the Cube as a good cheap night in the minds of freshers.
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I started 2005 when the cube was busy on both friday and saturday! Only other choice was Jesters (which is still as amazing) or Academy (which was ruined when it turned into Reflex). But that was in the day Sobar was a bar (and a lot nicer than it is now), no-one went to Oceana, Voodoo, Provenance (well whatever they were called back then), Bedford place only really had Orange Rooms.
Problem is the Cube is just a badly laid out venue which cannot be changed without major building works. Oh and the Sabbs and events team are so out of touch.
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Not true. I support the union and appreciate how good they are compared to a lot of unis. Doesn’t mean I’d pick the cube over voodoo on a friday night…
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Most Glorious Comrade,
You probably think you sound like a statesman with your drab “anti-union” rhetoric but you sound more like a cult leader.
SUSU, above all else, is a managerial tier with some influence over commercial services the University want students to pay too much for, and there’s an ever willing supply of executioners who’ll do the job for the sake of a title whilst getting to indulge a few pet projects, meanwhile having the temerity to parrot on about “representation” and “participation.”
Have you ever entertained the idea that perhaps “the hate” is, actually, cynicism, which legitmately arose from the fact that SUSU privileges dominant personalities with personal, self-serving agendas who treat Union as a playpen for their own thinly veiled political ambitions, who openly disparage people who don’t indulge their own ideology in a way that, A) is a massive discredit on behalf of the genuine-minded volunteers at SUSU and B) seriously discourages less confident, less assertive students from participating? It’s that kind of egotism which also leads you to dismiss any useful input that might, shock horror, be *critical* of Your Most Esteemed Portfolio, as a Tab conspiracy. Clueless, utterly clueless.
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Such a shame that the first message that students will get about “their” Union is please pay us a lot of money for a lot of events they’ll end up not enjoying.
The Students’ Union should be about what it offers it’s members not trying to force students to fork out £95 before they’ve even got here.
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£95 is insane. I have made my feelings well known on facebook that I think it’s exclusive and not well thought through. Not meaning to offend anyone but I do generally think people who are involved in student unions and student politics are far more likely to come from an affluent background, much the same as in any other walk of life which perhaps clouds their opinions and judgements on what is reasonable and what isn’t. Southampton itself I think tends to attract students from parents that are at least able to contribute to university financially. It’s not really a criticism of the individuals that make up SUSU just something that I have noticed.
Personally I wouldn’t buy the freshers pass regardless as it would not be something I used enough to justify it I just feel bad for people who feel pressured into buying it for fear of being left out especially if they aren’t really able to afford it. Especially as all the freshers events seem to be based around clubbing.
In regards to paying £9k fees so £95 shouldn’t be a big deal. I’m not seeing any of that £9k and it is paying for my tuition which is the main point of going to university. If people are just going for the ‘experience’ perhaps they should reassess whether university is for them or not.
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SUSU is losing money: the cube only gets used in freshers, the rest of the year it makes a loss because lets face it the cube can not compete with the many clubs in the city which are much better for money and give a much better night out.The £95 ticket cost is a way for SUSU to exploit freshers into providing SUSU funds. The cube’s capacity is limited and last year’s freshers ball people couldn’t move and people couldn’t even get into the cube. The only good thing that will come out of this is a mutual bonding between the years of how we have all been ripped off by the SU’s fresher passes. I paid £25 for mine and that was a rip off. The SU needs to admit that the cube is failing, close it down and let their funding be spent on clubs/socs and maybe just maybe there wouldn’t be so much hate towards SUSU
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I didn’t buy a pass last year, I went to about 5 events with entry ~ £5 each, I would have never have seen any repayment from the pass.
If you went to every single event you would probably be in hospital suffering from liver failure!
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