ANTIGONISH, NOVA SCOTIA - September 15, 2024 - The St. Francis Xavier Students’ Union, known as “theU”, is thrilled to announce its new partnership with Bounce to make it the official community and events platform on campus. All of theU’s events and student groups will be operating on Bounce to streamline member management and event hosting while boosting student engagement on campus.
With this partnership, St. Francis Xavier University becomes one of the first campuses in the Canadian east coast whose student union has officially adopted Bounce, joining powerhouses like Western University, UBC, and McMaster University. The StFX Students’ Union is now set to become a cutting-edge leader in the region for charting a path forward for students, by students.
For the executive team at theU, Bounce provides a way to tackle key challenges around improving campus life for students while simplifying event ticketing processes. "It was a part of our annual plan this year to partner with Bounce so that we can streamline the ticketing and organizing aspect of an event.” says Francisco Chang, President of theU, “Before we used to print out physical tickets, keep manual attendance lists, etc, and it was really time-consuming so once we saw this we knew we could make everything so much easier internally." Bounce’s flexible event hosting and ticketing system will allow theU to move away from inefficient processes and into a modern platform that will make ticketing on campus significantly less time consuming for the administration.
An overhaul of the event ticketing process with Bounce is only one of several benefits theU will be experiencing in this upcoming school year through the new partnership. The app’s centralized social feed where all campus activities are posted will help theU tackle one of its core challenges to improve students’ awareness of its events, student groups, and overall brand on campus. "We ran a referendum last year which didn't pass, and we quickly realized that students didn't really understand what the student union did on campus,” says Chang, “Some students were even using our services without knowing that we were the ones running it. Students didn't really know who we were at the student union or what the organization did for the campus." Bounce’s centralized social feed expands the accessibility and visibility of the StFX Students’ Union’s services, events, and groups significantly by giving the school its own hub of campus activities.
Students will not only be able to find all the information they need through the Bounce app, but they will also be able to immediately RSVP or purchase tickets to events directly through the university’s social feed on Bounce. The StFX Students’ Union has already felt the first-hand impact of Bounce’s improved accessibility for campus events through its first few events of the year. "Every Wednesday night at the Golden X Inn, which is the Students' Union Bar on campus, we have Wing Night, and every week we sell around 150+ tickets to that event that lets students skip the line and get in early,” explains Chang, “On the first Wing Night that we hosted on Bounce, the entire event sold out in 7 minutes!"
From the students perspective, Bounce's centralized feeds and social notifications makes discovering and engaging with campus activities easier than ever before; “I remember trying to find tickets to Wing Night last year and having some trouble. It’s so much easier now, because it shows up right away when I open Bounce.” says Colin, a student at St. Francis Xavier University, “it makes finding tickets for stuff so much easier.”
TheU is one of many Canadian student unions who have experienced immediate and significant improvements in their ticket sales through the Bounce platform. At the University of British Columbia (UBC), the Alma-Mater Society integrated with Bounce to increase event attendance by 42% for its largest ratified student group on campus.
As theU implements Bounce to modernize their campus ticketing and give the school its own hub of campus activities to bring students together, the executive team stresses that their efforts to tackle these challenges in the past had unique challenges. "The process of organizing an event was really outdated because we're a small school with a smaller budget so we had to work with what we had but, now that we have Bounce, things will be so much easier." Bounce’s platform is one of the leading solutions for universities and colleges of all sizes, offering improved student engagement and streamlined event management at an affordable cost.
To summarize, theU plans to leverage the Bounce platform in several ways:
Increasing Student Awareness: Bounce’s centralized social feed keeps students informed and allows immediate action. Students receive instant notifications for event launches and can buy tickets, sign up for organizations, and access information about
StFX Students’ Union services directly through the app.
Streamlined Event Management: TheU’s events and finance teams now have a streamlined hosting platform for student groups, reducing friction and consolidating useful information to build more efficient internal processes.
Building Stronger Student Connections: Bounce simplifies event attendance and organization discovery through the app’s centralized social feed, lowering barriers for students to build new connections with a more meaningful campus experience.
As Bounce is implemented into the St. Francis Xavier Campus by theU, the executive team hopes that it will result in students getting involved with groups earlier in their campus experience. "One of the things that we see at the student union level is that students don't really get involved until their third or fourth year on campus.” says Chang, “It's great that this year it looks like it will be the opposite - more students from 1st, 2nd and 3rd year are getting involved earlier in their campus career and it's great. Getting younger students involved means they will be able to build more momentum in the community, over a longer period of time, and build stronger connections because of it.”
Sean Monteiro, CEO of Bounce, echoed this sentiment: “It’s important not only for students to have the opportunity to get involved as early as possible, but also to have the means to do so– that is what Bounce is built for. We’re incredibly proud to partner with theU at St. Francis Xavier University to help nurture a vibrant and deeply interconnected campus.”
To learn more about Bounce’s innovative community and events hosting platform, visit www.bouncelife.com.