Lost emails, accidental exclusions raise concerns
With the transition from TicketReturn to Ticketmaster, students are wondering whether there might have been a few glitches in the system. Approximately 33 graduate students who were eagerly anticipating a ticket were disappointed to discover that they had been accidentally excluded from the lottery.
“I requested my season football tickets before the deadline, and I was expecting to receive tickets because of my status with loyalty points,” Steven Khoury said, a graduate student in the accounting program. “I found out that the ticketing office forgot to include some graduate students in the lottery, and we would have to get tickets on demand.”
Though the graduate students were eventually rewarded upper deck tickets, the students were displeased with the way their requests were handled.
“A few days ago all the graduate students received emails in our junk mail folders giving notice that we received upper deck tickets,” Lawrence Brownyn said, a graduate student in the accounting program. “This is, in my opinion, student ticketing’s way of shutting us up to get rid of us. I’m still extremely upset about the fact that they didn’t actually try to solve the problem.”
While students had minimal complaints about the changes, some students feel that the new system is confusing and hard to maneuver.
“I feel like they made [students] aware of the change, but there’s not adequate instruction on how to use the new system because I had no idea how to check to see if I had been awarded tickets,” Brownyn said. “I also have no idea how to claim them, give them up or anything.”
Graduate students are not the only students with complaints about the new system, however. Senior finance student, Chetna Mehra was disappointed with the outcome of the lottery.
“I have an upper deck ticket, but I don’t know anyone that got upper deck. I’ve never had a problem getting a ticket before for a game so if there wasn’t a problem with the system before why change it,” she said. “I can’t even sit with my friends and that really irritates me.”
Yousef Ibreak, a second-year business student, agreed with Mehra and explained why he is not a fan of the new system.
“The current system doesn’t seem to make any sense,” he said. “I know of rising juniors who attended every football game, in addition to other athletic events, and still did not receive football tickets. Yet I know of freshmen who received lower deck tickets.”
Disappointed in the system, Adam McCutcheon, a graduate student in the accounting program, decided to take matters into his own hands.
“I just abandoned the student ticketing process all together and bought season tickets from a Gamecock Club member,” he said. “Obviously, this cost me a good bit of money but I am much happier spending the money than dealing with the ticket system anymore in the future.”