Waiting for the band

The Bryce Jordan Center seeks fair ticket-selling policy with wristbands

Before last year, concert-goers at The Bryce Jordan Center may have needed just a little perseverance in order to get good seats for their favorite shows.

Now, they may need a lucky number as well.

Recently, the center has found a solution to the traditional means of getting tickets. No more cold, sometimes rainy or snowy nights out on the hard concrete in front of the box office. Instead, the center has employed a wristband system for selling tickets to popular shows.

The wristband system works by handing out numbered wristbands to prospective ticket-buyers the day before the tickets go on sale. The next day, the wristbanded crowds gather together to find out who has the lucky number.

The person who has the designated number becomes the first person in line and those with subsequent numbers queue behind that person.

Bernie Punt, marketing representative for the center, said the primary reason for the system is to prevent sleeping out overnight during the cold winter nights.

"We realize that there are some die-hard fans that choose to sleep outside no matter what the weather," Punt said, "but we don't want people to be out there when it's a danger to them."

Punt said the other main reason for the wristband system is because some people who want to buy tickets to shows at the center do not have time to devote to sleeping out at the box office.

"A lot of people work or have to go to class, so we think that this is the most fair way for people to get first in line," Punt said.

Kate Levine (freshman-accounting) said the wristband system is generally a good idea.

"I'm used to using them because I'm from Boston and I've seen a lot of shows that used (wristbands)," said Levine, who used the wristband system for last semester's Phish show.

However, some students do not think that the wristband system is the most efficient way to sell tickets.

"It was a real pain to go (to the center) two days; once to get a wristband, and another to buy the tickets," said Sarah Fuller (sophomore-women's studies). She used the system for getting tickets to one of the five Garth Brooks concerts held last April at the center.

Fuller said she waited an hour to get the wristbands and then more than three hours in the rain to get the tickets for the show.

"I liked (the wristband system), but I think that it's unnecessary for smaller shows," Stephanie Petruso (sophomore-English) said.

The wristband system is not completely flawless, Petruso added. She waited more than 3½ hours for Brooks tickets with her wristband, but ended up going home and ordering the tickets on the phone instead.