New system will allow fans to order, print tickets using their computers
November 4, 2005
USC students accustomed to waiting in line for hours to purchase football tickets will be able to buy tickets next season without leaving their dorm rooms.
The University’s Board of Trustees today is expected to approve the purchase of a digital ticketing system that will allow students and other fans to buy and print tickets from their computers.
Already in use at the Colonial Center and most SEC schools, the Paciolan ticketing system would cost about $187,000 a year. It would replace the existing ticket setup that the Gamecock Club has used since 1997.
“We’ve got a system that’s been here a long time,” Gamecock Club director Jeff Barber said Thursday, “and, quite frankly, we just needed to get up to speed.”
Similar to the electronic ticketing systems used by airlines, the Paciolan system would allow fans to buy tickets online for games involving the Gamecocks’ football, baseball and men’s and women’s basketball teams.
“They’ll be able to print a ticket from their dorm room,” Barber said.
Students waited as many as three hours to pick up tickets the week of USC’s football opener Sept. 1 against Central Florida, which was the debut of new Gamecocks coach Steve Spurrier.
Beginning next fall, scanning devices at Williams-Brice Stadium would read the bar code on the back of a ticket, giving officials a more accurate attendance count and reducing the possibility of counterfeiting. Global Spectrum, the company that manages the Colonial Center for USC, has been using a similar system since November 2004.
“It’s so much more efficient, so much more accurate, and it’s so much harder to have counterfeit tickets,” said USC athletics director Eric Hyman, who used the system at his last job at TCU.
Barber changing titles. USC is searching for a new Gamecock Club director to replace Barber, who will concentrate on fund-raising for Hyman’s long-range plan for new or updated facilities.
Barber, 47, will continue overseeing the Gamecock Club, which set record levels for donations in each of his seven years as director. As the senior associate athletics director for development, Barber will work in conjunction with the university’s development office beginning next year.
“This frees me up to oversee the Gamecock Club,” Barber said, “but to be out on the road raising money for the capital campaign.”
Hyman plans to announce next spring his vision for the Gamecocks’ facilities. Those plans are expected to include a complex for nonrevenue sports, a new academic center for athletes and new athletics department offices.
Hyman, who has toured the facilities at several SEC schools this fall, said USC has “dramatic room for growth.”
Reach Person at (803) 771-8496 or jperson@thestate.com
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