Though THON’s new PASS system had its pros and cons, the wait to go down to the floor was seen by many as the biggest problem.
Mike Wellner, Rules and Regulations overall chairman, said they tested the PASS system at the Family Carnival, and it worked well at limiting confusion. Wellner (senior-supply chain management) said THON changed its PASS system from the electric line from last year to a physical line, as previously reported.
Two hours into the weekend, Media Relations Captain Megan Renaut said the physical line was moving quickly.
But on Saturday, people waiting to go down to the floor were waiting longer than they expected.
One family, the Zoranskis, didn’t expect the line to be as long as it was on Saturday afternoon at about 3:50 p.m.
Marianne Zoranski waited in line to see her son, Stephen, who was a dancer in the Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon. Stephen’s sister, Allie Zoranski, got in line near Portal 8 of the Bryce Jordan Center with Marianne at 11 a.m. Saturday.
At about 11:30 a.m. Saturday, the floor of the BJC reached capacity, and the PASS system was not able to admit more people down to the floor.
People in the line had to wait for passes to be brought from the floor in order to go down, Renaut (sophomore-psychology) said.
Marianne said, with the passes, the process to get onto the floor should have been “a little more smooth,” as they had waited about five hours at the time of the 3:50 p.m. interview.
The passes for the Zoranski family were originally supposed to be good between noon to 3 p.m., Marianne said. She said she was not expecting them to stop giving out passes.
But, with the new physical line, Wellner said in a press conference after THON that the new PASS system ran “perfectly smoothly.”
“There weren’t any significant problems with the PASS system,” Wellner said.
He said that throughout the weekend, the technology for the PASS system did not fail. The reason why people were not allowed on the floor at certain points was because the floor had reached capacity, he said.
Because the floor reached capacity quickly, people spent more time in line than they had planned. Not only did the delay in floor access prohibit people from visiting dancers, but also, in some cases, it resulted in dancers being alone on the floor.
Stephen’s moraler didn’t come for part of Saturday because Stephen’s family had made plans to be there a certain time, Marianne said. But, because of the wait, that did not happen.
While waiting in line, Marianne said most of the updates were through word of mouth, with a few periodic updates from volunteers.
Allie said a way to alleviate this would be to allow fewer people on the dancers’ pass lists. Currently, each dancer gets 15 people, she said. By having fewer passes per dancer, Allie said it would decrease expectations with fewer hours and more rotations.
Another dancer’s mother Paula Lahann was waiting in line to see her daughter, Lauren.
Lahann said at about 3:40 p.m. Saturday that she got into line near section 107, and that it took two hours to move to the area near section 109.
Collegian Staff Writers Casey McDermott, Shannon Anderson and Evan Romano contributed to this report.
