Technical problem prevents students from being able to cancel tickets for ECU 
USC’s new student ticketing system, hosted by Ticketmaster, has already run into problems.
The Student Ticketing Exchange, which allows students who were not awarded season tickets in a lottery this summer to claim tickets on a first-come, first-served basis, was not accessible to students until Thursday evening due to a technical problem.
The Athletics Ticketing office learned of the problem, which was keeping students from canceling and claiming tickets, earlier this week, according to Anna Edwards, director of student services.
In the intervening days, Ticketmaster and the ticketing office developed an alternative portal that will let students claim available tickets, according to Edwards.
But the system wouldn’t allow students to cancel their tickets, so students who hadn’t confirmed their tickets saw them removed from their accounts at 5 p.m. Thursday afternoon, the original deadline to do so. That removal didn’t carry any penalties for the students, Edwards said.
A release detailing the problem and the new system was also sent at 5 p.m.
But the removal didn’t apply to the more than 10,000 season ticket holders who had claimed their tickets by the Thursday deadline, according to Edwards.
Questions about the timing of that email, how many students’ tickets were removed and whether USC will return to the original Ticketmaster system were not answered by press time Thursday night.
The email from Ticketing contained instructions explaining how students without tickets could claim upper- and lower-deck tickets.
At 7 p.m. Thursday, about 500 lower-deck tickets and more than 2,000 in the upper deck were available on the exchange, according to Edwards.
In the meantime, the online system still appears to have some issues, and students who had confirmed their tickets online can’t cancel tickets on the Ticketmaster website.
Instead, Student Ticketing is asking students to send an email to sastutix@mailbox.sc.edu with the subject line “cancel my ticket” before Saturday at noon. If they don’t, they’ll lose their season passes.
“We’re asking that they send us an email so that we can make sure those students aren’t penalized,” Edwards wrote in an email response.
Students with issues can email sastutix@mailbox.sc.edu, call 803-777-4274 or visit the box office at the Colonial Life Arena, which will extend its hours today from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.