Students are back! What does this mean? Full clubs!
With the return of the university students in Cardiff this means many things including, busier pubs and busier clubs. As of the 2023–24 university year 33,000 students were enrolled at Cardiff University, with most students living in Cathays, Roath, or Gabalfa. So, every year when students are back in September, it’s no wonder that entry to clubs becomes more difficult.
Each week the queue for YOLO on a Wednesday seems to get longer, with an average wait time of over an hour, unless you get there for opening. Some students said they waited in the YOLO queue for over two and a half hours after Cardiff Clash on Wednesday 1st October. As well as this, there was the YOLOWEEN ticket war that many people lost out on, with tickets sold out within the first ten minutes of release.
Many may be asking how the university is going to try and combat this growing issue. The answer to this is that they have teamed up with the Cardiff Box Office partner Ticketswap. Ticketswap provides a safe space to buy and sell unwanted tickets.
The Y Plas nightclub, home to YOLO, posted on Facebook on the 7th of October to let students know about this new way of purchasing tickets without the risk of getting scammed by re-selling tickets independently. The ticket scamming problem has been an ongoing issue regarding tickets for club and music events in Cardiff. Overheard at Cardiff University is a Facebook page made for Cardiff University students.
Currently, it has 55.2k members, and is where everyone goes for any information or gossip about Cardiff—from being used for finding housemates or renting out rooms, to making a public service announcement about houses getting “baked beaned”. Overheard is also most commonly used for asking for or reselling tickets. Many people, myself included, have brought tickets from someone selling on Overheard and have had no problems.
However, it is becoming increasingly common for people to be scammed out of their ticket or having to pay for an overpriced one. When asking students about how much they have paid for a resale ticket, one student said they had paid £60 for a Varsity YOLO ticket last year which were originally sold for £7. Paying £60 for a ticket to YOLO seems like an extortionate amount, but some students are willing to pay, likely due to FOMO.
So, how can you make sure you do not get scammed or overcharged on Overheard? Unfortunately, the only answer is to not buy secondhand tickets unless you know the seller, as there is no way to know whether they will be good on their word. It is a risk that you take when buying from Overheard.
The only way of securely getting resale tickets for club events at Y Plas now is from Ticketswap, the official partner. But will this new method from Y Plas stop some students from reselling tickets for immense profits online? Another problem with Cardiff nightlife at the moment is the queue times, whether it’s YOLO on a Wednesday or Misfits Friday, the queues seem to be getting longer and longer.
Misfits has taken action to help combat this problem by implementing an online queue system. This is to prevent people from queueing down Miskin Street and clogging up the road, as well to stop people from getting cold waiting for hours in the queue. This seems to be working somewhat successfully, as people are arriving at Misfits when it is their turn in the queue and not waiting longer than 20 minutes or so.
Let’s just hope this solution continues and we can get back to enjoying a good night out in Cardiff rather than stressing, rushing, and overpaying; feelings Cardiff students currently know all too well.