The new online ticket system created to eliminate long lines for football games has upset many students, though many are content with it.
The new system involves logging onto the ticket Web site (http://www.ticketreturn.com/sc), applying for a ticket and receiving confirmation e-mails informing students of whether or not they received a ticket.
Student Body President Andrew Gaeckle said he thinks the system will be great once everyone is educated on it.
"I understand that it's a new system and a lot of people are going to have questions and complaints. Everyone is still getting comfortable with it," Gaeckle said. "Anytime anyone has something new, there's going to be a lot of complaints as people adjust to it.
However, a Student Government-created Facebook group with 789 members, has 198 wall posts and the majority of recent ones have been negative.
The wall posts range from confused questions from students to complaints regarding pricing information, loyalty points, points received due to year in school and so on.
Despite the complaints, some students are happy with the new system because it makes students use the tickets in order to keep their privileges to attend games.
Matt Garrick, a fourth-year sports and entertainment management student, said he was against the system until he realized students must now use their tickets.
"I saw how many people weren't using student tickets the past two years," Garrick said on the Facebook wall. "People are paying thousands of dollars a year just to buy season tickets, and we weren't even using all of ours (not even close to it)."
However, Gaeckle said there have been several issues because there are so many people using the system for the first time.
The first problem came about because students couldn't access the system due to their fees and/or tuition not being paid.
"Students must be fee-paying in order to access tickets. That's why we extended the deadline until Saturday," Gaeckle said.
The main issue effecting students now concerns loyalty points.
"So many people accessed the system that the loyalty points have gone into effect, so now many students are upset because they did not receive a ticket," Gaeckle said.
Ed Neuhaus, a first-year broadcast journalism student, said on the Facebook group that the system is good in theory, but not in practice.
"The loyalty points system right now is flawed because you can only get points from basketball and football," Neuhaus said. "Since it's such a small amount of sports, right now it's practically just a plain lottery, except with a little weight granted based on what year you are."
Neuhaus said he thinks the system would be much improved if you could get points for all sports.
Gaeckle said it's a joint effort to get the system working effectively,
"It's a matter of Student Life, USC Athletics and Ticket Return working together to ensure the Web site is working as well as possible," he said.
If students encounter technical difficulties, they should call Student Life at 803-777-5782, 803-777-6102 or 803-777-6688.
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