The AMS is ending its partnership with Bounce, moving club support and event sanctioning to an internally managed system, FreshService, following feedback from students.
The AMS partnered with Bounce ahead of the 2025-26 academic year, providing clubs with a platform for event sanctioning, ticket sales, forms, and other event-related functions. The rollout faced criticism from club leaders over communication surrounding whether clubs would be required to use Bounce for ticket sales.
The transition away from the platform began Aug. 9, with the new system expected to be functioning by the end of the month.
In September, clubs also raised concerns about Bounce’s ticketing fees, which were 2.9 per cent plus $1.30 per ticket sold.
READ MORE: AMS-Bounce deal stirs up controversy
Edward Sy, AMS vice-president (university affairs) and Samantha Rogers, AMS commissioner of campus affairs, sat down with The Journal to discuss why the AMS is ending its partnership with Bounce and what students can expect next.
From May to June, the AMS conducted an online club’s consultation survey that received approximately 40 to 50 responses from club leaders.
“Unfortunately, we’ve seen that needs weren’t necessarily met for our students,” Sy said.
FreshService is already used by the AMS for other processes, including its Clubs Help Desk and election and referendum forms.
Under the new system, clubs will submit event sanctioning forms through the AMS Support Portal rather than Bounce. The portal will also act as a centralized location for other processes, including club forms, election and referendum forms, grants, and awards.
The AMS also plans to use FreshService to track how the new sanctioning process is performing. Each submission with receive a tracking number, allowing the AMS to collect data including wait times and compare the efficiency of the process with previous years.
Rogers said the AMS has already tested FreshService through its student graduation bursary application process. She said the test didn’t result in additional emails raising complaints or problems with the process.
One function FreshService won’t replace is Bounce’s integrated event ticketing. Clubs will have greater autonomy to choose whichever ticketing platform best suits their needs.
For some club leaders, ticketing was one of Bounce’s most useful features.
Mirwaaj Afzal, CompSci ’27, used Bounce as finance director of the Pakistan Students Association and said the club relied on it for every event, primarily for ticket sales and event sanctioning.
“It did the basics fine; tickets got sold, events got sanctioned,” Afzal said in a statement to The Journal. “It just never felt like it went beyond the bare minimum of what it needed to do.”
Afzal said he was frustrated by the portion of ticket revenue retained through the platform and the time it could take for money from events to reach the club’s account, which he said sometimes exceeded a month.
“Between how slow everything moved and how unresponsive support was, this felt like something that was coming eventually,” Afzal said of the AMS ending the partnership.
Other club leaders had different experiences with Bounce’s support.
Joy Liu, HealthSci ’27, used the platform through the Queen’s Cardiac Research Committee and Queen’s Forensic Sciences Association for larger events requiring ticket sales and waivers.
Liu found Bounce’s centralized approach useful for keeping track of attendees, payments, waivers, dietary restrictions, and other event information.
Liu said she found Bounce support responsive when she contacted it with platform-specific questions. Her main difficulty was determining who was responsible when an issue arose.
“It wasn’t always clear whether an issue was a club’s question, a campus affairs question, or a Bounce question,” she said in a statement to The Journal.
Alexander Jakov, ArtSci ’27, also described his experience with the platform as mixed as a member of the Association of Balkan Students at Queen’s.
Jakov found parts of the platform confusing, particularly when creating new groups and resolving problems.
As clubs prepare for the transition, Rogers said the AMS is working to provide resources to help students adjust to the new system. They plan to offer extended office hours and a video walkthrough explaining the new process.
Tags
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to eic@queensjournal.ca.