About the Penn State Ticket Management System

The Problem

On June 7, 2007, tens of thousands of Penn State students logged onto their computers awaiting the release of student football tickets.  Within 59 minutes, over 21,000 tickets were sold.  With demand at over 40,000, at least 19,000 University Park students were forced to pay scalpers' outrageous prices in order to attend a game.  For many students, Penn State Football isn't a simple game, it's a way of life. A solution needs to be implemented in order to increase the amount of tickets available to students, and make scalping impossible.

The Solution

A simple, and effective solution to this problem would be an online, web-based interface for managing one's student tickets.  The tickets in this database would be linked to a student's ID card, granting access to games through a simple swipe of one's card.  Additionally, tickets could be managed through an online portal, very similar to Penn State's eLion system for managing finances, grades, and other vital functions to student life.  This online portal would allow students who are unable to attend a game to sell their ticket for slightly less-than face value.  This unused electronic ticket would then enter a pool, available for purchase by those unable to acquire student tickets.  This thus eliminates scalpers from the equation, making football games all the more accessible for students who simply aren't affluent enough to pay scalpers' prices.  On game day, the ticket would be accessed with a simple swipe of one's Penn State ID+ card.  Furthermore, students who show a greater dedication to the football games in general (i.e. selling less tickets, not missing games) would receive higher prioritization in the ticket queue for the next season.

There are those, however, who would undoubtedly oppose such a system. Some may say that the project could be too costly. This project could be easily completed internally, perhaps contracting some work from the College of Information Sciences and Technology’s Solutions Institute. Designing and implementing such a system internally would prove to reduce costs vastly, and provide a great deal of student involvement and input on the project itself. However, others may oppose the idea for no other reason than fear of change. They may feel that a new, unproven problem would be prone to problems. With the wild success of the Penn State Access ID system in other applications, there’s no reason it couldn’t work just as successfully in this environment. Never once has my card failed to purchase my dinner, get me into the fitness center, or let me into my residence building. Still others may oppose the idea simply because of the vast amounts of profit they’re able to make in reselling tickets to students not fortunate enough to get season tickets online.

The Medium

All this can be facilitated through the vast technological resources available to Penn State, which makes the present paper ticket system seem positively archaic.  I felt the best solution to this problem would be to present the Penn State Athletics administration with a working model of such a system, and let the merits of technology speak for themselves.