It’s sometime around the age of thirteen that McDonald’s stops being everyone’s favorite fast food restaurant.  The fries taste the same and the hamburgers don’t change, but something does.  It always happens—soon after kids realize that they are too old to play in the ball pit and too big to climb through the tunnels.  A little piece of childhood gets put in a box, forgotten about, and never fully resurfaces.

Perhaps that is why students had so many complaints about Midweek Mayhem (also known as the ticket blitz) last Thursday evening where students were able to purchase tickets for three Hour Afters.

Despite the five inflated play areas from Jazzy Jumpers, students still had many complaints about the ticket-selling event.

“The line was simply ridiculous,” commented Zach Clouse.

Tickets were sold from 9:45 till 12:15 on the evening of Nov. 5. During that time, there was a constant tide of students waiting for tickets to the Hour Afters.  The line formed before tickets even went on sale and stretched across almost the entire Union Hallway and out the north doors.

Right next door, in the Union Gym, were the bulk of the bounce-houses.  There was a crazy castle, a twister board, sumo wrestling and Q-Tip jousting.  All of these, however, were in the shadow of The Adrenaline Rush.  This gargantuan inflated slide and obstacle course was nearly as wide as the gym and over 20 feet tall.  However, it failed to satisfy some students, including Isaac Yoder-Shrock.

“The bounce houses helped, but just weren’t quite relaxing enough after all the stress of waiting in line to get tickets,” said Yoder-Schrock.

However, the Campus Activities Council (CAC), which planned the sale, maintains that the night was a success.

“We felt like it went well.  There’s always some anxiety, but there wasn’t anything to do to make the line go faster,” said Tim Blaum.  He pointed out that last year the connector hallways were regularly clogged with people waiting for long periods of time just to get tickets to student performances.

Selling all the tickets on one night means that people will probably spend less total time waiting than last year, when tickets for each event were sold separately.  It also made the process more efficient.  In just the two and a half hours of selling, over 350 transactions occurred.

While the specifics may change slightly, the CAC reports that they will most likely have more ticket blitz’s in the future.