#A Better Tents4Tickets
So, I think Tents4Tickets was a good initial idea. When I heard about it, I liked it. But, being out there today, it seemed like it never got past the initial-idea stage. The main problems were access/line control (skipping) and the bottleneck of only having one distribution point.
Skipping in line was a huge problem. I’m thankful most everyone got tickets that wanted them today, but we have quite a few unscrupulous Bulldogs amongst us. Starting at 6 am, someone should have been working back from the beginning handing out a different color wrist band for those already in line, to keep people from showing up late and jumping in. This must be monitored at the point of service, as well. Giving out wristbands and then not checking them is lazy and stupid, and it betrays the trust of the students that followed the rules.
Also, the way it was promoted instilled some pretty unnecessary fear in the student body that they would not get a ticket. Camping out is fine, and a lot of fun, but it should not be forced upon the whole student body. We’re not a large enough school for that yet, and hopefully with the new expansion to the stadium it will stay that way for a while. Here’s my solution:
- Tents4Tickets was good, and it should be kept. Shrink it to 300 tents and 3,000 tickets, though. This way students aren’t motivated by the fear of not getting a ticket. They’re there to have a good time and make some memories. Smaller size makes it a little more manageable, as well.
- Start selling tickets to the students at Tents4Tickets at 6am Saturday morning at the M-Club.
- This leaves 8,000 tickets left to sell. Hold 1,000 to sell on Monday at the Bryan Building.
- The remaining 7,000 tickets will be sold starting at 8am (possibly a bit later for the M-Club) between 7 distribution points on campus (for example):
- The Hump
- Newell-Grissom
- The Union (queue in the Ballroom, with people coming in the door on the Drill Field side and going up the stairs. This leaves the foodcourt open for people eating breakfast and people that don’t care about tickets.)
- The Palmeiro Center
- The M-Club
- The Bryan Building
- The Templeton Center
This way each place has 1,000 tickets that can be distributed in under an hour. Less wait, less frustration, easier to crowd-control.
MSU is only going to grow, and (hopefully) the football team will continue its winning ways. Distributing the entire allotment from a single point is just bad logistics, and frankly, I’m surprised the MSU administration didn’t recognize this was going to be a problem. The athletic department and the Student Association has done a great job getting the student body pumped for this semester, however, and I applaud them for making an effort to start a new tradition.