In the past 6 years, tickets for JMU Athletics have gone through a huge revolution. This year, JMU's ticket system is making huge leaps in tracking and convenience and the Ticket Office is really doing an outstanding job.
Ticket Update
Family Weekend - obviously sold out. Parents have already reserved over 3000 student tickets so they could sit with their son/daughter, leaving a little over 1200 student tickets available for pickup
Homecoming - Sold Out (will have normal allotment of student tickets)
Maine - about 500 tickets left (not including student tickets)
Towson - about 1000 tickets left (not including student tickets)
Student Tickets
Must be a FULL-TIME student (undergrad must be taking 12+ credits and grad students 9+ credits), which means you would be paying the full activity fee which qualifies you for ticket benefits. Otherwise you must buy a ticket like any non-student, because your tickets are only included with full activity fees. Also, make sure your JAC is in decent shape...the scanners being used aren't quite as forgiving as the other scanners on campus and it holds up the line when the ticket attendants have to type in the numbers.
Gates Opening Earlier
Remember, gates open 60 minutes before kickoff, so get there early. The ticket office is actually discussing opening the gates 90 minutes early to give everyone some extra time to get in and get settled. Where Student Duke Club got in 30 minutes earlier before, they would still get in 15 minutes earlier. Once it hits time for the normal gates to open, both will be letting students in, but SDC members still have their exclusive entrance.
The Big Announcement
There's a VERY good chance that students will have to pick up tickets for all future football games (and possibly basketball in the future), including Maine and Towson. This is where being a member of the Student Duke Club will become crucial. Starting this Sunday for ticket pickup for the Richmond game, SDC will have an advance pickup time from 6-8pm (or until the line is done or all tickets are gone). There are only about 1200 student tickets left for this game, and there are over 1700 SDC members...so do the math. The Ticket Office will input and upload SDC membership information again on Sunday to try to have everything up-to-date. SDC will also be taking sign-ups at the Ticket Office window on Sunday, so there's not really an excuse not to join. UPDATE: Even though you will have a ticket, JACs will still be scanned to confirm you are a student and paying the full activity fee.
In the future (possibly by the end of the football season or during the basketball season), instead of a paper ticket pickup, students will be able to reserve their ticket online, you'll get a confirmation email, and the ticket will be loaded onto your JAC. This will cut down on people losing their tickets and having to deal with anything extra. Students will just have to reserve the ticket then swipe their JAC card like they're using a punch.
Dates to remember
October 1st - Priority deadline to order away game tickets for William and Mary and Delaware
October 7th - Priority deadline for Men's and Women's basketball season tickets
Hopefully this answers most of the questions people had.
So, for Homecoming and Parents' Weekend, will they still be scanning JACards at the stadium entrance, even though JAC was already scanned/used to get the ticket from the ticket window prior to the game??
ReplyDeleteI understand the reasoning behind most of this, but it also seems like a lot of new procedures that will bring frustration to many students...especially those of us that aren't in SDC. :-\
Yes, they will still be scanning JACards when entering the stadium to be sure that you are a student and paying the full activity fee, even though you already have a ticket.
ReplyDeleteIf you are refused entrance or a ticket for any reason, have the ticket office check to see if your name is on the list sent from the University Business Office (UBO) that confirms that you are a full time student. For the first game, UBO only sent a list of undergrad students, hence why grad students were refused entrance. They have received a number of complaints and are working on solving the problem in time to pick up tickets for Parent's Weekend.
ReplyDeleteAnd, was JMU ever officially planning on telling us of the changes? Thank you Drew for having inside info!