I'll be the first to apologize for the student section

[westnodak93bison]

Would be nice if "open" seats could be made available for young kids. Gotta start them young if we want Bison Nation to grow.

[thundarsdaddy]

Announcing in August that the tickets are sold out for the season is bad enough, but wife and I heard the very beginning of Bison Pregame on the radio, at 1PM saturday, when Ryan Gellnar announced the Indiana State home Bison game to be a sellout?

Lets start with the Bison Flagship station and announce that tickets are available!

Not just on gameday, but once they go on sale!

[HerdBot]

On the gobison.com ticket website it says this "Additional tickets may be available Friday, (insert date here) at 8:00 a.m. Please check back for availability," for every single game.

It says that every week. After the first 3 weeks of getting zero tickets people probably just give up. I along with everyone else just assumed there were none available. Again shitty communication. I hope they learn from this. It's pretty bad when people pay for SRO but there are good seats available

[bisonfanette]

Ah I see. It would also be nice to remove the purchase limit of 2 on those days as well.

Now you are seeing the light! I think you could get up to 8 GA tickets last Friday & I wasn't even in a waiting room at 8:15am!?! Now what does that tell you? Simply a communication problem.

[stevdock]

It says that every week. After the first 3 weeks of getting zero tickets people probably just give up. I along with everyone else just assumed there were none available. Again shitty communication. I hope they learn from this. It's pretty bad when people pay for SRO but there are good seats available

They have said for years now that if you have SRO tickets and there are seats available in the student section that you can go sit in them whenever they become available.

[Bison bison]

Who said that? When?

[stevdock]

Agreed. This is not complicated. When NDSU knows there will be a substantial number of tickets opening up, simply send an e-mail out through the alumni association and put out the press release and ask the paper and TV to run it.

To NDSU's credit they did say on Facebook more SRO tickets became available on Friday, which they knew was because of the poor student turnout. But never said to the public that SRO's can become seats IF the students don't show up. If I don't have seats and I see SRO's become available without knowing that last part I probably wouldn't buy because I can have a better seat at home. But if they were to say that SRO's can become seats then I'm probably buying.

[bisonfanette]

If I don't have seats and I see SRO's become available without knowing that last part I probably wouldn't buy because I can have a better seat at home. But if they were to say that SRO's can become seats then I'm probably buying.

Understandibly. When they set the deadline last Tuesday for the students to request their tickets... perhaps I should have thought ~ they may open up GA tickets? I honestly was surprised when I saw them available online. BOTH Sro and GA. Ppl will come for GA tickets

[bisonpride]

I as well was not very happy about the lack of students attending. Who ever said there were a lot of empty seats must have been watching a different game on TV because I have a panorama of after halftime showing EVERY section is full to the top with very very few empty seats and a half empty student section. Remember it was a CODE GREEN game so the dark colors tends to be thought of as blue on TV.

There were MAYBE 3,000 students there at the start of the game. Probably a better estimate is 2,500-2,750. The area above the band was virtually empty. It only started to become remotely populated later with people who had standing room tickets realizing why not go sit there. Same could be said for a small area around the ISU fans. I am sure the non-standing room tickets that were available Friday were returned tickets from the opposing team from their 500 allotment. By noon Friday there was a facebook post from athletics that there was a limited number of Standing Room tix available. That maybe was not the best wording to get people to by tickets. They were trying to be politically correct I am sure but if they know that many students were not attending it could have been worded that seats will be available for anyone with standing room tickets above the student section. People are not going to get excited about just SRO tickets when they know the only place they can stand is in the corners with a big pole in their view. If they know that they will be able to sit above the students then they will be MUCH more likely to sell.

Having gone to all but a very small hand full of games since the dome opened as a HS kid, Student, Grad Student, now alum and season ticket holder there is one thing that holds true every year. No matter how good the team is the student section will be full the first 2 games no matter who they are playing. After that there is a gradual decline in attendance for I am sure various reasons with the exception of a rivalry game. Instead of just having a flat 4,000 tix every game they maybe need to look at a gradual decline in tix for the students as the season goes on. Or make them get their tickets by the Thursday or Friday a week ahead so they have the whole weekend to announce that X amount of tickets will be available on Tuesday and make them GA tickets starting at field level next to the band in Section 10. Work your way up with how many actual seats are available. If people purchased SRO tickets for that game they have Sunday and Monday to exchange for GA first (must be some way of doing it electronically). Gives incentive to buy a ticket anyway in the hopes you have first dibs on a GA ticket. Late arriving students are also the ones who are not going to stick around anyway, so rope off the area above those GA seats so students can sit above those GA seats. If you want a better seat as a student then get their earlier.

I am sure there are other outside the box ways to do it. But something needs to change because it is the same thing every year and with how high the demand is for tickets lots of adjustments need to be made across the board because if people know their are seats available they will sell and sell quickly.

[THEsocalledfan]

I know this may be a bit risky, but here is an off the wall idea. Is it feasible to drop student fees a bit that go to athletics, and they make that up by making them buy a season ticket, for a very low price, for football only? Keep other sports open.

Just trying to think outside the box and in a way fair to the students as I feel they pay for those seats even if not used.