this article talks about raising student tickets prices at Michigan and no hold seating, but the reason they claim for doing this is for no shows and students showing up late. Does anybody think this might solve some of our problems in the student section.
http://www.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ssf/2013/04/michigans_dave_brandon...
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In my mind (ideally) we'd have some kind of incentive system for going to all the games, a la Maryland. To be able to go to games like the Duke game at Maryland, you build up loyalty points by going to all the "bad" games and you are rewarded with a tickets to the high profile games. I'm not sure if something like that would feasibly work with us, but it's something that I always thought gets the "best" fans at the games. Could be something worth looking at IMO.
I actually wrote this for my proposal paper in the Technical Writing course like 5 or 6 years ago. Of all the schools I researched, we were the only school that has zero incentives for people getting tickets. Everyone else was heavily weighted by age, attendance, etc. I think this is the way to go, unless they end up making people go to all sports to get loyalty points, not just the sports that you are interested in getting tickets for. I'm all for supporting all of the athletic programs but the last thing I wanted to feel obligated to doing on a Friday night was going to see the Women's Tennis team play just to get points so I could go to the football game.
Our student ticket policies are very strange, to say the least.
The one that has bothered me for ages was the way they handled basketball season tickets for students. After my freshman year, I ended up buying season tickets for basketball and went to practically every game my sophomore year. After that season, they changed the way season tickets were given out - that's when you had to enter & win the lottery to be ELIGIBLE for season tickets. I understand that demand was higher, but it really hurt the crowds in my opinion. I am a huge basketball fan, moreso than football (which I still enjoy tremendously), but was unable to get season tickets due to the new policy.
As far as providing incentives, I think one of the easiest ways to curb students leaving early from football games would be to scan student IDs. As you come in it's scanned & the same when you leave - the students who have accumulated the most time inside the stadium get priority seating next year... It's not a perfect system and there will always be people who try to take advantage of it, but I think it would cause people to think twice about leaving at halftime if they knew their seats next year would be further up in the stands.
I agree with everything you've said, the only thing I wouldn't like is scanning the student ID. As a fairly young alumni I sometimes rely on using my student id to use a student ticket to go to games, even though I'm not a student anymore. However, if it improves the student section back to how it was when I was coming to games in high school, I'd put up with me having to get an actual non student ticket.
Yeah, I agree with the scanning the ID's being an issue. Also, there have been multiple occasions where I have used others' IDs to help get friends from other schools into the gates with a student ticket. I actually wrote a paper while I was in school about the loyalty system as well. I believe I looked a lot at West Virginia as an example on how they set theirs up.
How about scanning the tickets instead? That would cut down on the ticket paper airplanes that everyone seems to hate as well as increasing the quality of fans attending the games.
Also instead of total time, possibly go by either number of quarters per game or time per game. So if someone can't make it to every game, they could still get more credit than someone who went to every game and left at half time.
Our basketball season ticket policy has always rubbed me the wrong way. I can't complain too much since I've gotten season tickets for all my four years, but I can't stand the fact that for the "bad" games, there's no one there, and it's these same people that have taken season tickets away from the people who really want to go to every game. That being said, it's fairly easy now to get into the games, but the principle is bad in my opinion.
I only went to one basketball game because I could never get tickets. Even as a senior. The only game I went to was the Clemson game my senior year (2010) that was rescheduled after a storm. The line to get inside was insane, and the atmosphere was awesome. Wouldn't it make sense to have open admission to every game (in addition to season tickets) and entice people who want to go?
Overall, loyalty points would probably require an increase in student ticket prices to pay for the staff and ID scanning at each game for all sports.
They could do it without having to raise prices too much, because they already scan your ticket, which has your name associated with it even if they don't scan your ID. Even if you can't make it to a game and give it to a friend the ticket is still being used and you get credit for finding someone to fill your seat.
I don't think all sports have tickets
You could make it so its only for the sport you desire to go to, and they would roll over from year to year. So the Seniors would have better loyalty racked up if they went to games their previous years (in basketball's case). You could also do something similar with football.
I can summarize my opinion of the student ticket situation (at least in basketball) with one story.
My Junior year I really wanted season tickets to basketball games. I entered the lottery and didn't win. Undeterred, I decided to still try and find season tickets. I knew somebody was likely trying to sell them and make a buck. Fine, I don't mind paying an extra ten bucks, fair enough.
I saw some sorority girl who looked like she didn't even know who Eric Green was offering up her season tickets literally a day after the lottery results came out. I believe the tickets would have cost about $80 straight up, including that annoying "handling fee" they give out which is another thing all together. I offered to give her $95 for the tickets. She responded by saying she was taking nothing less than $130 for them.......
Again, if you want to make a buck that's fine, but the system is being blatantly abused and VT has got to do something about it.
This is exactly what I was going to say. Last year was the first time I won season tickets and of course it was only because nobody else wanted tickets. I had a friend who didn't get season tickets but she did go to every game from the stand-by line, and although that was always and option, she didn't win tickets in the lottery very often. If there's someone who actually wants to go to games then they should be able to get tickets.
Call me an idealist, but I STRONGLY disagree with the concept of 'making a quick buck' off of student tickets - it sickens me to see that students have sold tickets to high profile games at an enormous profit. When it comes down to season tickets, students aren't paying much more than $10-15 per football game and maybe even less than that for basketball games. I knew people who never went to games, but bought a student ticket & guest ticket for the sole purpose of selling them throughout the year. If you want to make money, get a job on campus and do it the old-fashioned way, since there's plenty to be had.
Anyways, I'll stop ranting - I agree with you though, the system is a complete sham and VT really does need to reform it in some fashion
It's ironic because the money you'd make in "profit" on scalping the tickets is probably what you would make in two shifts working a campus job. The people who try to cheat the system probably got dicked this year, though, since you couldn't give away tickets by the end of the year..
I just always get the feeling that the athletic department doesn't care about loyalty or want to reward it when it comes to the students. Don't get me wrong, my friends and I have been spoiled for basketball games freshman year (front row seats), but since then we've gotten crap seats in Cassell. Especially now with the team sucking, you have these people that never go to the games and have these primo seats and then you have us who have missed maybe a handful of games over four years and our seats are high up and behind the backboard. It just rubs me the wrong way.
Completely agree with you. I am a Undergraduate Alum who immediately continued on for Grad school and my season tickets for Football have been pushed further and further away from the field. I have never received tickets in North End Zone, and after getting to my seats for the first game this season to find that I was SECOND ROW FROM THE TOP of East stands, I flipped my ish. I also was only able to win season tickets for basketball my sophomore year. Loyalty doesn't amount to anything with our athletic department.
I know a lot of people knock the student section here (and for the record I HATE those fucking paper airplanes), but I haven't seen anyone get to games late. Maybe I'm just always too drunk to notice, but in my 5 years my friends and I have never missed Enter Sandman.
As far as complaints about leaving the game early and spending more time taking pictures than watching football, I've seen that, and it disgusts me.
From my vantage point midway up the East Stands the last few years, it's very easy to tell that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of people still milling around outside the gates (not necessarily even trying to get in) when Sandman is pumping. The stands become noticeably more crowded by the end of the first quarter, then empty out by halftime. Sad.
one of my friends just sprinted through the line and passed the scanner to get in one game before sandman...i wish all my fellow students had that dedication haha
For the GT game last year we were cutting it close cause we didnt have that much time after class to drink so we had to delay our arrival to the game but we ended up unhooking one of the fences that was separating the lines and like 20 of us hopped into a faster line and got in. The security people were pissed that we did it but we were long gone. Talk about opening the flood gates!
Almost every game Freshman year I hopped the fence into the north stands and sprinted to the seats with an east stands ticket. By the time the ushers saw me I was always already in the group of students.
One of my buddies is doing grad school at Bama and he told me about how they do their student tickets and as much as I hate to like anything associated with that school they have it figured out.
I can't remember all of the details but basically you purchase your home tickets and then you are "obligated" to go to most (or maybe all, I can't remember) of the games. If you can't make the game or don't want to go you can "sell" your ticket to another student via their athletic website at face value. The more games you or your ticket attends, the more likely you are able to purchase tickets the next year.
This doesn't solve the problem of people leaving at halftime but it essentially ensures that people that want to be at the game can attend. Again, I can't remember all of the details but I personally think it's an upgrade over our current system.
Penn State does something similar. Their tickets are connected to their Penn State ID's, so instead of having scanned in tickets the tickets are digital. Then if you want to sell a ticket you have to do it through the school at face value instead of people trying to make money on them (I remember kids doing that while my sister was there, she was pissed). That's not a bad way to do it if you ask me. I think it's pretty clear that the way our school is doing it is not smart, they definitely need to rethink the ticketing system.
Either system sounds like it's an upgrade. Some sort of digital system to re-sell tickets through the school is the way to go since it'll largely eliminate the scalping problem... the bigger problem is how lazy VT has been on a ticketing system.
Just to put it in perspective - the first year I bought student season tickets (2007), they were mailed to me with a ticket for each game. Standard stuff, you tear it off & present at the gate.
I believe the following year, they switched it to a single ID card that was your ticket to every football game. Apparently there were lots of complaints about that though, since it was difficult to replace if it was lost & it made it difficult to let someone else use it if you couldn't (or wanted to scalp the ticket basically). Personally, I liked that idea the best of all the strategies they've used. Plus, I didn't feel sorry for people who lost it or never got it back from someone after selling it, because if you really cared you would have been careful with it.
The e-tickets that they continue to use have always annoyed me, on three fronts - the first is that it's clearly a cost-cutting measure. The second is that it spawned the paper airplane throwing. Thirdly, I'm not the kind of person who hoards tickets from past games I've been to, but I do have a select few that I've kept over the years. The ticket design & relatively small size make them fun keepsakes - with the 8.5x11 generic printout, what's the point of keeping it? For all who were there the first year they started using this system, I remember hearing a fair amount of criticism of the policy. I distinctly remember a Facebook group organized for the UNC game that year (because I was a part of it) - at the start of one of the quarters, everyone who had been made aware of this group through a paper airplane to signal their displeasure with the administration's ticketing policy... unfortunately it didn't work & has become a huge nuisance.
There has to be a better policy & the university seriously needs to figure something out, as I'm tired of seeing people take advantage of the system.
ive found when it comes to basketball as a student, buying season tickets (unless we suddenly get good) is a waste. I bought them freshmen year, but this past year i went to every game i wanted just with my student ID including the duke and uva game. for football, i do feel like a higher price would just keep the people who dont go anyway from buying seats and maybe it would give freshmen the chance to buy season tickets to help heighten interest early on.
I know a lot of people are hating on the printout paper tickets, but they are by far the most convenient way to sneak friends that go here into our student section. Ive got friends that go to other power house schools like Bama, South Carolina and other ACC schools, and they all have wanted to experience our student section. My buddy who used to go to Bama was watching the Miami game and after he saw Enter Sandman at the end of the game the only thing he texted me was "Lane Stadium is FUCKING nuts!" I got him to the Austin Peay game last year with some of my other buddies for my 21st and, even though we dont remember much of the game, he had a blast and wanted to come to another game (albeit a better opponent than AP). The paper tickets make it so much easier for that to happen since you can just print out an extra copy.
And I think the other problem is the opponents we face. Like who really wants to see teams like AP, Bowling Green, Duke, Wake, and other bad teams of the ACC and non-conference opponents? #VT4SEC
I do wish students would be more into the games like all of us on here. I want Lane Stadium to be the LOUDEST and most INTIMIDATING stadium again after I feel like we lost some of that after last year.
EVERY BASKETBALL GAME IS FREE ADMISSION FOR STUDENTS, AFTER TIP OFF.
You just have to go to the side door closest to the practice facility and show them your Student ID. You can sit in any unoccupied seat in the student section.