Catherine Thompson got in line at 10 a.m. Monday for tickets to this weekend’s football game. It was the beginning of a journey that would last more than three hours and would cover less than one mile.
During the crawl from the entrance of Carson Hall to the EMU Ticket Office, she and others would pass garbage cans overflowing with thousands of discarded coffee cups, miss two meal times and watch thrilled students prance by with tickets already in hand. Finally, she received her own.
Long lines for student tickets are nothing new, but the consensus from students who waited Monday was that the queue was exceptionally slow.
“The maximum I’ve ever spent in line was less than two hours,” said Thompson, still several hundred feet from the entrance of the EMU. “(Most) big universities this size, their students get their tickets when they register.”
Despite the panic, tickets were still readily available up until just before 4 p.m. Monday afternoon, with waits as short as five minutes toward the end of that period. Contradicting reports of the line size and wait time at the Autzen Stadium box office filtered through via cell phone calls, but few were willing to abandon their spots, fearing that one location would run out of tickets first.
That’s not possible, Director of Ticket Sales Garrett Classy said.
The tickets, which are purchased each year with incidental fees, are distributed free of charge to 5,700 students for each academic calendar game. The experiences of getting a ticket at the EMU and getting one at Autzen differ only slightly.
“We both have the same set up, although the EMU is very limited. They have only two or three windows. We can have three or four,” Classy said. “Both offices have about 4,000 tickets on hand and we pull approval from the same computer so no one ever runs out before the other.”
Skipping class or organizing intricate schedules and shifts with friends to preserve spots was common Monday, and many, Thompson included, were frustrated knowing that academics were sacrificed to secure an pre-purchased ticket.
“We’re paying for this – skipping class, standing in line – that is bullshit,” Thompson said.
Senior Chris Sakuda waited in line for almost four hours and skipped his classes.
“I missed two classes and I’m missing one right now, so I guess that makes three,” he said.
Up and down the quarter-mile line, students grumbled about the lengthy process needed to distribute tickets.
“There has to be a more efficient way to do this,” freshman Tina Scotton said.
Some suggested using DuckWeb to distribute tickets, raffling off seats in a lottery, distributing on Sundays or simply hiring more employees. The sole constant among those waiting was malcontent.
Sakuda suggested that students’ time at the University should be a factor, just as it is during course registration.
“I think there should be priorities for seniority,” he said. “What about GTFs? They can’t just skip class to wait.”
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