If this morning is the first you know of it, chances are you won't be getting tickets to the Michigan game.
In an effort to be first in line for today's first-come, first-served away game ticket sale, some students began lining up days early at Gate B of the Bryce Jordan Center. The number of students in line for tickets topped 130 by 7:30 p.m. yesterday.
About 200 tickets will go on sale at 7 a.m. today.
The first students, a group of seven or eight, arrived at about 8 p.m. Sunday evening, just hours after a press release on Penn State Live announced the sale would begin Tuesday morning.
"We happened to check PSU Live and saw that it said 'if line forms beforehand' [on the announcement about the ticket sale]," said Michael Barrish (senior-international politics). "We figured that meant a line would form."
The group called the police to ask if a group was allowed to set up their tent, Barrish said. The police said they couldn't, so they slept on the concrete in front of Gate B, finally pitching their tent at about 5:15 Monday morning.
"We were the beginning and end of the line for a while," Barrish said, adding that the line really began to grow after noon Monday.
By 7:30 p.m. yesterday, about 11 tents were pitched in an orderly line directly in front of Gate B. The number of people waiting for tickets led Mike Krueger (junior-finance) to start a list marking each student's spot in line.
"We started this list at about 3:30 to offset confusion tomorrow morning," Krueger said, adding that he was number 106 of about 139.
Krueger and Nisang Shah (senior-accounting) also said that to keep the list current, they will be taking roll call at about 2 a.m. Every student who signed up for a ticket must be present at 2 a.m. or they will be kicked off the list, Shah said.
The campout for away game tickets was not orchestrated by the Paternoville Coordination Committee (PCC), vice-president Chris Grassi (junior-supply chain and information systems) said.
"We're not involved whatsoever," he said.
Penn State has different regulations for campouts at the Bryce Jordan Center, and the agreement the PCC reached with university officials does not apply, Grassi said.
Greg Myford, associate athletic director, said the university is taking a "wait and see" approach to camping out for away game tickets.
"So far this year, students in Paternoville have acted in a responsible way," he said. "As long as everyone is in line with how things have gone so far, we want to give students as much latitude as possible in camping out."
Because significantly fewer tickets are offered for the road games, Myford said, all remaining away game tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.
Myford said that Michigan gave Penn State 4,000 tickets, and about 5 percent were then allocated for students. The 4,000 ticket distribution to opponents is standard across the Big Ten, he said.
Despite the limited number of student tickets, most students in line said they would make the six-hour plus trip to Michigan on Saturday rather than sell their tickets.
The group of students who arrived first will be making the trip together, Laura Szkudlapski (senior-secondary education) said.
"We're thinking about renting an RV," she said.
