The Union Treasury and club leaders have expressed satisfaction with the newly instated events admission price policy this semester, allowing clubs to charge a nominal admission fee, which followed last semester's policy requiring all Finance Board-funded events to offer free admission to Brandeis students.Last January, immediate past Union Treasurer Choon Woo Ha '08 informed club leaders that the trial policy was formed because of concerns over the amount of money undergraduates pay for events on campus. Students are required to pay a Student Activities Fee with their tuition each semester from which the Finance Board draws its funds. The SAF is equal to one percent of tuition. The Union Treasury's office was concerned that students were paying twice for SAF-financed events.

After surveying students and reviewing the policy, the Free Admissions Advisory Committee composed of Treasury members and club leaders issued a recommendation at the end of last semester for a fall 2008 policy. According to that recommendation, which the F-Board is following this semester, events that are fully funded by the F-Board can charge a maximum of $3 in entrance fees. If a club plans to donate all the proceeds from an event to charity, the club can charge an admissions fee of a maximum of $5.

According to a survey undertaken by the committee last semester, 40.8 percent of students answered that they attended more events due to the Free Admissions Policy. Students answered that they would pay a maximum of $5 to $6 for theater events, $3 to $4 for party events, and $3 to $4 for cultural events.

Union Treasurer Max Wallach '09 said this semester's policy has been successful. "I think clubs have generally gotten the idea that although they can charge ticket prices now, they should keep it to a very minimum of what they need to put on the show and that they shouldn't really be making a fundraising profit off of it. That's not really the purpose," he said.

Clubs began requesting more money last semester because of the pilot program, he said. "There was definitely a spike in spring 2008 as compared to the past, and that's because club leaders started realizing they should request everything they need from Finance Board, and Finance Board will fully fund it to the best of their ability." Funding requests this semester have been consistent with requests last semester, Wallach explained, because clubs are charging less for their events and thus need more money to finance the event.

This semester, the theater group Brandeis Players charged admission fees of $3 for their play The House of Blue Leaves.

Samuel Negin '09, treasurer of the club, said the policy change had not affected audiences dramatically but had impacted how the group paid for expenses. "We've started asking F-Board for a lot more money than we used to," he said. "Once upon a time we would get $1,000 out of them and have to do the rest of the fundraising ourselves for a $ 2,500 budget, and now we get all of it from F-Board."

Last semester the group requested and received $2077.50 when it performed Squabbles with free admission. This semester the group requested $5,274.78 and received $4,200.

While last semester's policy provided the group with more money, he explained, "the benefit of being able to charge for tickets is that the theater fee is based on the number of people who come."

"[When] those people aren't paying admission, we still have to pay a fee based on their having shown up, so if we can charge for it, they're effectively subsidizing their own entrance fee," Negin said. According to the Shapiro Theater rental guidelines, any event charging entrance fees up to $10 must pay $1 per each seat sold.

Hold Thy Peace, a group that produces Shakespeare plays, still offered free admission this semester. "[The policy] definitely does cut down on revenues, but it increased audience size, which is probably the more valuable of the two, and since we ask for donations, we recoup some of the missing ticket sales," group treasurer Phoebe Roberts '09 said. She said the group made the decision not to charge entrance fees this semester to increase the size of the audience independently of last semester's policy.

In previous semesters the group had charged $5 per ticket, Roberts said.

Brandeis Ensemble Theater charged admission for their play Six Characters in Search of an Author at the beginning of the month. BET co-coordinator Alexandra Friedman '09 explained that the admissions price covered $1 for the theater fee, a $1 fee for the Undergraduate Theater Collective and $1 for the fundraising account.

BET charged $2 for its group's Thursday performance because the group had savings in its fundraising account, and students are busier on Thursday nights, so this is an incentive to get people to come to the show, she said.

In general, she called the current system a "good arrangement."

Wallach said earlier plans for a new online SAF management system intended to ease club's financial transactions were slightly behind schedule because its coding turned out to be more difficult than expected for Village Software, the outside company creating the software. He said he expected a usable version to go live at the end of this semester.