Interesting idea from the Maturi conference call (re: Student Tickets)

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stevedave23

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One caller suggested students pick up their tickets for each game on the day of the game. This would force the students to get there early and allow for unused tickets to be sold the day of the game.

I see this as being a huge logistics undertaking having to hand out 5-10K tickets in x amount of time. Other problems with this suggestion?? Seems like it could work if executed correctly.
 

Perhaps not the day of the game, but how about Wednesday through Friday the week of the game? That may not solve anything with getting to the game early or on time, but it would probably allow the U to know how many tix they have available.
 

Several callers mentioned this during the conference call. Maturi also mentioned, to another caller, that they were in the process of getting permission to oversell the student section. That caller suggested they oversell it by 5,000 and Maturi said they wouldn't be able to do it by that much.

I came away from the conference call fairly satisfied with his answers to the student section issue. They are working on it, but people have to remember it's the U and the amount of bureaucracy is dazzling.
 

stevedave23 said:
One caller suggested students pick up their tickets for each game on the day of the game. This would force the students to get there early and allow for unused tickets to be sold the day of the game.

I see this as being a huge logistics undertaking having to hand out 5-10K tickets in x amount of time. Other problems with this suggestion?? Seems like it could work if executed correctly.
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This was my suggestion and what I was trying to say was that the tickets be picked up by Wednesday or Thursday of game week. No complicated logistics needed because it is open seating. On Thursday morning the ticket office would have a stack of tickets not picked up. Simply sell off of that stack until it is gone. I suppose you would have to keep track of how many were left when you got down to 100 or so but not before then and not an overwhelming problem.

The other part of my suggestion was to open up the unsold tickets to HS football coaches for their players. A coach would poll his players as to how many want to go to the game. The coach then calls the ticket office and pays for that many tickets at a cheap price say $5 or $10 per ticket. The coach, or coaches, all have to sit together with the players to maintain discipline.

Getting to HS football players to games has a number of advantages.

You are strengthing your relationship with the HS coaches.
You are getting players, some of whom will be D-1 prospects, excited about Gopher football.
You are building your potential fan base. Many of these players will continue to follow the Gophers and come to games after they graduate from HS
You provide even more youthful energy to the student section.
You sell more concessions.

Didn't sound as if Joel was too excited about either part of the suggestion however.
 

diefirma said:
This was my suggestion and what I was trying to say was that the tickets be picked up by Wednesday or Thursday of game week. No complicated logistics needed because it is open seating. On Thursday morning the ticket office would have a stack of tickets not picked up. Simply sell off of that stack until it is gone. I suppose you would have to keep track of how many were left when you got down to 100 or so but not before then and not an overwhelming problem.
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Actually the tickets would be kept track of electronically so really no need to keep hard copies and no worries about numbers. The system could simply print out tickets as needed.

diefirma said:
Didn't sound as if Joel was too excited about either part of the suggestion however.
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No, he didn't and that disappointed me. He mumbled something about, "yea, we've looked into that..."
 


I don't like the idea of having students picking their tickets up the week of the game as it is just one more thing they have to do to get to the game. Simplify, simplify and simplify...when that doesn't work, simplify some more. The more obstacles one has to overcome to do something the less likely the casual fan will be to pick up their tickets. In the end that may allow us to get more butts in the seats with non-students, but that shouldn't be the end goal. The end goal is a passionate and well attended student section and we need to give them their tickets all at once at the beginning of the season and require no additional work other than attend and cheer.

Go Gophers!!
 

BleedGopher said:
I don't like the idea of having students picking their tickets up the week of the game as it is just one more thing they have to do to get to the game. Simplify, simplify and simplify...when that doesn't work, simplify some more. The more obstacles one has to overcome to do something the less likely the casual fan will be to pick up their tickets. In the end that may allow us to get more butts in the seats with non-students, but that shouldn't be the end goal. The end goal is a passionate and well attended student section and we need to give them their tickets all at once at the beginning of the season and require no additional work other than attend and cheer.

Go Gophers!!
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Agreed. These kids are barely making it to the games, make an extra step - and a LOT more work for the ticket office, and it will be 1/2 the size.

One thing I would be in favor of, is students being able to trade in tickets. If they aren't going to use their tickets, go to the ticket office, get $10 or whatever the face is on their ticket, and the ticket office can sell the seat for public face ($50 or $60). It's a win/win. Plus, it would be an incentive for students to not have their ticket go unused. Maybe make the cutoff Thursday before the game.
 

I know Minnesota has a much bigger fan base than MTSU and the stadium holds more, but at MTSU, the students go to games for free. How we let them enter is through a bar code on their student ID. They can enter through any gate as long as their bar code on their ID is scanned. This seems to work great and is pretty efficient and fast. If Minnesota students have ID's, maybe they can pay for their ticket beforehand (if they don't get in free) and have it applied to their account, where it could scan on an ID bar code.
 

dance4raiders said:
I know Minnesota has a much bigger fan base than MTSU and the stadium holds more, but at MTSU, the students go to games for free. How we let them enter is through a bar code on their student ID. They can enter through any gate as long as their bar code on their ID is scanned. This seems to work great and is pretty efficient and fast. If Minnesota students have ID's, maybe they can pay for their ticket beforehand (if they don't get in free) and have it applied to their account, where it could scan on an ID bar code.
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It has sounded like they are looking to go to E-tickets via the student ID's. I think the hold-up was simply due to the initial start-up costs for scanners, etc.
 



GoAUpher said:
It has sounded like they are looking to go to E-tickets via the student ID's. I think the hold-up was simply due to the initial start-up costs for scanners, etc.
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Not sure how this solves the issue of unused student tickets??
 

GoAUpher said:
It has sounded like they are looking to go to E-tickets via the student ID's. I think the hold-up was simply due to the initial start-up costs for scanners, etc.
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I think the big factors is this.....

If students get tickets they use them.

These tickets are not scalped, especially to rivals.

Whatever left is offered to someone.

.....

If returning the tickets for a discount during the week happens great. Allow them to de-activate their barcode or whatever for the game. Email them to remind them or warn them if they missed a game.

The best system would combine this with a current u-card and allow students to avoid buying tickets all together directly. Don't worry about over-selling, just allow them to log-in and say they are going during the week till it is full. If they don't end up showing up, ban them for the season unless they pay a fine or something.

Release extra tickets to the public on Friday.
 

stevedave23 said:
Not sure how this solves the issue of unused student tickets??
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anti summarizes it well but I'll add a few. If you have e-tickets then its easier to:
1) Sell/transfer tickets to other students becomes easier via an online marketplace.
2) Track usage/penalize no-shows
3) Return tickets for games you can't attend to allow Gophers to resell them (possibly getting refund/credit for returned ticket)
4) Reduce/remove scalping to non-students as an option

Oregon has a nice model that could be followed:
http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=24631
 

oversell

I think we just oversell it by a couple thousand and go from there.

Even when all 10,000 show up, they stand the entire game and squish together in the lower level anyway. There is room for at least 12,500 in the 10,000 seat area. I'm sure they are waiting for the fire marshall to say what they can do.

The bench numbers were spaced way apart in case they go to chair back in the future. On a 10 number row (standing especially) you can easily fit 12 or more people without issue.
 



stevedave23 said:
Not sure how this solves the issue of unused student tickets??
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You quoted GoAUpher, who quoted dance4raiders. I agree that e-tickets don't necessarily help the cause of unused student tickets. But the gist was the free tickets that dance4radiers said are provided at MTSU. That idea intrigues me. I know the U is all about money with the new stadium, so they would never go for this. And I do think students have to have some skin in the game or else it's too easy for them to sleep off their hangovers and skip the game. But it's worth considering.
 

Hates Monikers said:
You quoted GoAUpher, who quoted dance4raiders. I agree that e-tickets don't necessarily help the cause of unused student tickets. But the gist was the free tickets that dance4radiers said are provided at MTSU. That idea intrigues me. I know the U is all about money with the new stadium, so they would never go for this. And I do think students have to have some skin in the game or else it's too easy for them to sleep off their hangovers and skip the game. But it's worth considering.
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Free tickets for students actually makes more of them go. They don't have to pay for anything (but concessions), they can tailgate, and get to watch the game... all for free. The only time students can't get in the gate on gameday with just their ID is when we play UT in basketball, Miss. State in football, etc. For these games, the students have 2 weeks to go to the ticket office, show their ID and get their ticket for free. If they don't do this, then I believe 2 or 3 days before the game, the rest of the tickets are donated to the Boys and Girls Club, churches, etc. It actually is a pretty good system. Plus, most students always have their ID with them on campus because it's used to get into most computer labs, dorms, the Rec Center, etc. and they don't have to worry about holding on to a ticket.
 

dance4raiders said:
Free tickets for students actually makes more of them go. They don't have to pay for anything (but concessions), they can tailgate, and get to watch the game... all for free. The only time students can't get in the gate on gameday with just their ID is when we play UT in basketball, Miss. State in football, etc. For these games, the students have 2 weeks to go to the ticket office, show their ID and get their ticket for free. If they don't do this, then I believe 2 or 3 days before the game, the rest of the tickets are donated to the Boys and Girls Club, churches, etc. It actually is a pretty good system. Plus, most students always have their ID with them on campus because it's used to get into most computer labs, dorms, the Rec Center, etc. and they don't have to worry about holding on to a ticket.
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The thing is, the students have already paid for their tickets so money doesn't seem to be an issue. Having no-shows means that many students bought tickets but decided not to come. If someone isn't going to come even after they've already paid for the ticket, then I don't think they would come if it was free.
 

If there are open spaces at kickoff, let students pay $5 to get in until it's full. If you show up late and it's already full, too bad. Students need to be in the stadium on time to attend the game. This may need to be tweaked a little bit, but this way you don't have to get permission to oversell, and you encourage students to be on time, and you fill up the stadium better. Seems like a win win to me.
 

gophergrad said:
Several callers mentioned this during the conference call. Maturi also mentioned, to another caller, that they were in the process of getting permission to oversell the student section. That caller suggested they oversell it by 5,000 and Maturi said they wouldn't be able to do it by that much.

I came away from the conference call fairly satisfied with his answers to the student section issue. They are working on it, but people have to remember it's the U and the amount of bureaucracy is dazzling.
Click to expand...

Love this idea. Oversell it and limit admittance, first come first served.
 

If you have a policy of overselling the student section by 5,000 that is just that many more Iowan's in the house.
 


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