Georgia game only available through Carolina Convoy
Students may now request football tickets for the Gamecocks’ five away games, a Tuesday morning email from Student Ticketing announced.
Student tickets for the Sept. 7 game at the Georgia, USC’s first away game and one of the most highly anticipated of the season, will only be sold through the Carolina Convoy, a Student Government-run program that transports students to away games by bus and provides them with snacks and a T-shirt in addition to a ticket. The Office of Student Ticketing made tickets to the Georgia game available to Carolina Convoy, but is not involved in the program otherwise. A seat on the Convoy runs $95.
Many students expressed frustration that they would have to take the Convoy if they wanted to pay student rates, which are often less expensive than the tickets sold to the general public.
“The decision that UGA tickets can only be purchased through the convoy is ridiculous. Athens is close enough to drive and get a hotel room,” said Zach Adams, a fourth-year global supply chain operations and management student. “I was very disappointed to wake up to their email this morning.”
Despite criticism, 90 Carolina Convoy packages had been sold as of Tuesday evening.
No tickets will be available outside of the Carolina Convoy because SG anticipates high attendance due to an attendance of 220 on last year’s trip to Florida. Because of high overall demand for tickets to the Georgia game, no additional student tickets were available outside of Carolina Convoy, said Courtland Thomas, director of Carolina Convoy.
For Georgia’s game at Williams-Brice Stadium in October 2012, UGA students could purchase tickets for $70 each and did not have to participate in any university — or student government-run program in order to be eligible for the tickets, said Tim Cearley, a spokesman for the University of Georgia’s athletics department.
The other four games range in price from $45 to see the Gamecocks play the University of Central Florida to $80 for South Carolina’s game at Tennessee. Tickets to the game at Missouri are $75, while it will cost students $55 to attend the Arkansas game.
Students had requested 16 tickets to the UCF game, three to Arkansas, one to Missouri and 31 to Tennessee as of Tuesday evening, Adrienne White, director of student ticketing said. It is unclear how many tickets will be allotted to students, but White doubts that requests will exceed the amount of tickets requested.
“I don’t think any of the away games will sell out. The Gamecock Ticket Office has been very gracious in providing every student with a ticket,” White said.
There is also a $10 handling fee that students must pay when requesting tickets. The fee is non-refundable, even if a student does not get a ticket due to too many requests. Ticketing advised students to request all tickets at once in order to avoid paying the handling fee multiple times. The fee covers the costs of processing credit card orders, printing tickets, will call and mailing tickets, White said.
Tickets can be requested through the same Ticketmaster system used for home games. Requests can be made through Friday, Aug. 16 at 5 p.m.