After the process for ordering student football tickets was modified, problems continue to surface.
Emma Esmont, a graduate student in public health who graduated from Ohio State in the spring, signed up to sit with a friend for the fourth consecutive year.
“I’m in a totally different section than (my friend) is,” Esmont said. “She is in the South Stands and I’m on the sidelines. It was just really frustrating because now I’m sitting in a section by myself.”
Other students received tickets in the groups they wanted but were unhappy with their seat locations.
“I kind of expected to have better seats than last year,” said Natalie Arnason, a third-year in nutrition. “Last year I was in B-deck but pretty close to A. But this year I’m in 4-C, like the very top.”
That was despite having the same group members both years, with each member advancing from rank-two to rank-three status.
Class rank determined seating assignments, officials said.
“The way the group process works is one person is identified as the group leader … and determines which class ranks can join that group,” said Brett Scarbrough, senior director of ticketing. “The way that group seating is designed is it’s based on the lowest ranked member of the group.”
Though that portion of the process was similar to past years, the ordering procedure did undergo a change in the spring. All students ordered tickets in June, with seniors ordering first and each lower rank ordering on a separate day later in the month.
In previous years, returning students ordered tickets in April, and incoming freshmen and transfer students ordered in June.
Changes were made in part to “alleviate the confusion … around groups that wanted to sit with other students that may not have ordered during the same ordering period,” Scarbrough said.
Esmont was confused about why her group of two was separated.
“We’ve sat together every other year,” she said. “We were upset … but somebody’s not going to reissue tickets just for you.”
Though Esmont did not formally complain, others did.
“We’ve received a few complaints regarding people who thought that their group request was not honored,” Scarbrough said. “All of those turned out to be that the student did not go in (to) properly attach the group name to their order.”
Despite claims that the problems were a result of user error, Esmont received confirmation that she had successfully joined the group, she said.
“Students didn’t believe that underclassmen should get a block of tickets … held for them when seniors and juniors didn’t all get what they wanted,” said Bill Jones, associate athletic director of External Relations.
Anarson was one of those students.
“When freshmen sit in A-deck and juniors and seniors have worse tickets, I just think it’s kind of awkward,” she said.
Despite concerns about the group ticketing process, both Jones and Scarbrough said they expect only minor changes next year.
