A week after officials fixed an error in the university’s online ticket-selling system, it took only two hours for Ohio State men’s basketball student tickets to sell out.
Last week, before tickets were about to be released, only 70 percent of the e-mails were sent to students.
After two days of deliberation, the ticketing problem was finally solved.
“We re-sent the ticket information e-mails last Thursday and another reminder Monday,” Scarbrough said. “The e-mails were all sent within 10 hours, which is much-improved from last time.”
The proper e-mails were sent, the server did not crash, and students were able to sign onto their account and attempt to purchase tickets at 4 p.m. Tuesday.
Brett Scarbrough, senior director of ticketing for OSU, explained that all of the technical difficulties from last week’s mishap were solved.
“We worked with the university’s OIT and Ticketmaster to manage and re-configure the e-mail servers,” Scarbrough said. “We needed to bump up and tweak the settings to increase the flow of e-mails.”
Though the e-mails were sent out successfully, some students still seemed confused and angry.
“I was definitely planning on buying tickets but I didn’t know they were going on sale today,” said Samantha Zornes, a fourth-year in biology.
“Our administration should have done a better job of organizing the ticket sales,” said Justin Mayer, a fourth-year in construction systems management. “People who were waiting to buy tickets and looking forward to watching Jared Sullinger start his first game at Ohio State are probably sad.”
Jared Kamrass, the Undergraduate Representative for the University Athletic Council, said the release date was pushed back for the students’ benefit.
“Tuesday’s date was chosen so that all of the information about this year’s men’s basketball ticket sales could reach the students and allow for necessary preparation,” Kamrass said.
The ticket office plans to make sure a problem like that never happens again.
“We now instituted an internal rule that there must be at least five days notice for students when tickets go on sale,” Scarbrough said.
