BOULDER — University of Colorado students frustrated that they won’t be able to attend the Republican presidential debate being held on their campus are banding together this week to demand that more tickets be made available.
Late Thursday, the CU Student Government passed a special resolution chiding the university, the Republican National Committee and CNBC, the cable news channel that’s broadcasting the debate, for making just 50 tickets available to the university community.
Audience cap
The Oct. 28 debate is being held at the Coors Events Center, which can seat more than 10,000 people. But the audience will be capped at roughly 1,000, with a small fraction of those seats going to university students, faculty and administrators.
When she heard those numbers, CU junior Bea Lacombe was surprised. Lacombe is a representative at large for CU Student Government and worked with her colleagues to let the debate organizers know how unhappy students are.
She said it’s frustrating that her generation is accused of political apathy, and yet can’t attend significant political events like the debate.
“It sends the wrong message to students,” Lacombe said.
The CU Student Government resolution calls for a “drastic” increase in the number of tickets available to students and the community and states that if the Republican National Committee and CNBC refuse to do so, the university should no longer be involved with the event.
On Friday, CU officials said they shared the students’ concerns and announced that the Republican National Committee increased its allotment of tickets for CU to 100.
“We have requested more, but we anticipate that few, if any, will be forthcoming,” wrote CU-Boulder spokesman Ryan Huff in an e-mail. “We understand that this is primarily a television event and CNBC has limited the audience of the 11,000-seat Coors Events Center to about one-tenth of capacity due to the set-up of the stage, lighting, camera equipment, etc.”
He said the university will soon be releasing information about a student watch party on campus.
Sean Spicer, chief spokesman for the Republican National Committee, reiterated on Friday that the debate is a televised event not meant for a live audience.
He said the debate being held at CU has a relatively large audience. Cleveland’s 21,000-seat Quicken Loans Arena hosted an audience of about 4,500 for the first GOP debate in August, while the debate this month at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library hosted about 300 people.
Publicity benefits
University officials say they are not charging CNBC or the Republican National Committee for the use of Coors Events Center but expect to reap huge publicity benefits from the exposure.
Huff, the university spokesman, said Friday that CU is also providing police, security and other expenses at no cost, which he said is standard for hosting a debate.
Huff added that no tuition revenue or student fee funds are being used for the event, as Chancellor Phil DiStefano plans to use private fundraising dollars and campus insurance premium rebates to pay for debate costs.
