November 12, 2021 | NEWS | By Zeke Lloyd | Photo by Gracie Roe
Colorado College hockey tickets can be hard to come by. After they become available at 8:00 a.m. on Monday mornings, they go fast. Sleep in and you miss out. Spend too much of the morning away from your computer and seats will be gone. Forget to check your email and you’ll be stuck trying to get a glimpse of the game from the fourth floor of South.
Unless you can get someone to send you their ticket.
In the past weeks, there has been a spike in ticket transfers between students. This is somewhat unexpected, as the ticket transfer process wasn’t designed to be easy. In fact, it wasn’t designed at all.
While season ticket holders are able to send or even sell their tickets to others via Ticketmaster, students are not able to perform direct transfers on the app. Instead, they use screenshots to move tickets from one person to another. But any transfer has to be between students because Gold Cards are checked at the student entrance.
Why would someone even give up such a precious commodity in the first place? It turns out there are a number of reasons students might claim a ticket on Monday and not attend a game on Friday or Saturday. An easily attributable factor is the recent spike in COVID-19 cases on campus.
As of Nov. 11, there were 90 people quarantined in isolation due to COVID-19. Many of the students who transferred their tickets cited COVID-19 protocols as the reason they were unable to attend the game.
This uptick in cases means that the redistribution market has taken to instant messaging services. While some transfer tickets to close friends, others have put their tickets up to the general student population.
Initially, a variety of GroupMe chats acted as vessels for ticket transfer requests. These included chats made for entire grades, specific clubs, and a random assortments of other student groups. Conversations about tickets quickly took over chats, and by the end of the week, requests and offers were everywhere.
On Friday, Nov. 5, Jane Abbott ’22 made a GroupMe chat specifically for the redistribution of tickets (although other chats continued to act as platforms for places for tickets).
“I was worried that it wouldn’t be received well, but it seems like everyone is on the same page,” Abbott said. “My only issue is that I, and I’ve never been to a hockey game in my life, am now the admin of a group chat whose sole purpose is selling hockey tickets.”
24 hours after the inception of the designated GroupMe, 35 students asked for tickets and 27 students offered them.
Individuals have different criteria when deciding who to send their tickets to. One student gave hers away to someone with a name she remembered from a block they took together long ago. Others just sent their ticket to the first person who responded to their offer. Some looking to get a ticket offered money, although it is unclear if a monetary transaction for a ticket ever occurred.
CC has no tangible rule on ticket transfer among students. Students receive emails each week reminding them to claim their tickets, and that if they do, they should attend the games. Otherwise, there is no written policy. The school is currently working to address this.
“We are aware that [ticket transfers are] possible, however, it is hit or miss when the screenshots work to be scanned,” said David Bailey, Assistant Director of Athletics Marketing.
Now the school is working with SafeTix, a system used by Ticketmaster to prevent stolen or shared tickets from being used.
“Basically, each ticket barcode will refresh every few seconds so that it cannot be stolen or copied,” Bailey said. “This will prevent screenshots from being able to be utilized as a ticket.”
The next home hockey game isn’t until Friday, Dec. 10, so the administration has time to react. As of now, the group chat is silent. What student ticket transfers look like in a month remains a mystery. Maybe it will be come to life again on Monday, Dec. 5. Maybe not.