Several hundred Georgetown students logged on to CampusGroups Nov. 9 to purchase tickets for two of the biggest events of the year: the annual Rangila performance and the Corp Gala. 

Many, however, were too late, with both events selling out in a matter of minutes. Rangila is the largest charity dance showcase in the country, performing two nights a year in Gaston Hall. This year, Rangila sold out all 1,486 tickets across both nights in three to four minutes. 

Sanaa Mehta (SFS ’25), the co-president of Rangila, said the club is so popular because of its various on-campus partnerships with organizations like The Corp and the Asian-American Student Association (AASA).

“It’s not just exclusively for South Asian students,” Mehta told The Hoya. “We collaborate with different departments and clubs at school like The Corp, Georgetown Bubble and the Asian-American Society. I think the reason why it has so much visibility and is such a big deal leading up to the show with ticket sales is because of that general outreach.” 

Rangila is a non-profit organization with proceeds going to a different South Asian charity each year. This year Rangila will donate to Action Against Hunger, a nonprofit which confronts food insecurity in five South Asian countries. 

As a result of Rangila’s immense popularity, some students, like Zoe Gutherman (CAS ’27), were not able to buy tickets. Gutherman said she wishes tickets had been sold at two separate times to increase accessibility. 

“The tickets went on sale when I was in class,” Gutherman wrote to The Hoya. “It was a seminar based class so we weren’t allowed to have computers out or anything. I think maybe they should have had two different times of selling tickets, even if the second time the tickets cost more or something. For those students that had class during the first time, they may not have had class during the second time.”

The Corp Gala, which raises money for scholarships and club-sponsored drinks, decided to have a two-tiered system with ticket sales this year. This change meant that there would be two different opportunities to buy tickets.

The event, which will be held on Nov. 30 at Union Station, has already sold 1000 tickets between the two ticket drops. The Corp’s Philanthropy chair Claire Ridley (SFS ’24) said this year’s location in Union Station makes the event more exciting for guests, which has led to the demand for tickets.

“We have been doing it for at least the past 15-20 years, so it is an annual event that gets a lot of traction every year,” Ridley said. 

A malfunction on CampusGroups, the only authorized platform for Georgetown student groups to sell tickets, complicated Rangila ticket sales. The Saturday performance sold out within two minutes, but a glitch in CampusGroups allowed students whose purchases were still pending after the sellout to continue to buy tickets, according to Rangila co-president Saar Shah (MSB ’24).

Shah said Rangila temporarily paused all sales and individually reached out to affected students to establish a solution. 

“We were right there managing this live around 5:32, 5:33 p.m.,” Shah told The Hoya. “Since Saturday sold out first, we still had capacity on Friday, so we just temporarily paused all sales and then offered everybody who purchased on Saturday, the last people to purchase, the people who were in that pending group, we offered them to switch to Friday, or we offered them a refund if they weren’t able to make it to Friday night.” 

Mehta said that while Rangila’s online sale had problems, it was better than last year’s in-person sale, which was the only way to secure tickets to the event. 

“Last year it was a three-hour line for some students, which we found to be quite disrespectful to students’ time,” Mehta said. “We marketed 5:30 p.m. for about 12 days in advance, so we wanted to let students know that this was happening. Second, we made sure that every student could purchase five tickets.” 

Despite the difficulties, Mehta said she believes an online sale is still the most accessible to students. 

“The online platform seems to be better in the sense that we are not having students wait in line for three hours and buy tickets that way, but definitely room for improvement after seeing the demand and everything that happened,” Mehta said. “We just wish Gaston was bigger. We want to accommodate the enthusiasm Georgetown has for Rangila.”