Collegiate Times

ticket_center

As counterfeit student football tickets are finding their way into the hands of Virginia Tech football fans, the athletics department is hoping that student integrity will decrease this growing trend.

For the 2008 football season, students received one pass with their student identification number on it that was scanned before each game. However, 2009 student tickets are e-mailed to them to personally print out, much like last season's basketball tickets.

The new setup marks a pseudo-return to the ticket system used two years ago, in which students were given printed, per-game tickets. The main difference is students print their own ticket.

"There were problems with the cards because students would lose them or they would get stolen, and they weren't easy to replace," said Sandy Smith, assistant director of athletics for Ticketing Services.

Smith said the print-at-home tickets were used for the 2009 basketball season, and it seemed to work well.

However, the issue of printing and selling multiple counterfeit tickets has become a problem with the introduction of print-at-home tickets.

"Altering or selling counterfeit tickets is an honor code violation," Smith said.

Students face conduct referrals if they are caught counterfeiting tickets.

"We are doing our best to tell people not to do it," Smith said. "If anyone is found counterfeiting tickets, they will be turned into judicial review."

Smith said the electronic print-at-home method is easy for students, and they are distributed on a game-by-game basis.

"I understand why the new ticket situation is the way it is, but I liked the tickets that were mailed to your house ... like alumni tickets," said junior civil engineering major Robert Thuma.

Alumni are given the option of print-at-home tickets or receiving them through the mail, but there is a price difference. The print-at-home tickets are less expensive.

The new distribution method "helps students get their tickets in an efficient manner, and they help maneuver people around the stadium," Smith said.

Smith said the department does not want student tickets to look like alumni tickets because it makes it difficult for ticket scanners to tell the difference between the two, and Tech students are expected to show a Hokie Passport along with their ticket to enter the game.

He also said student ticket prices are reduced, and a similar looking ticket could be sold for more than what the student paid.

Smith said alumni tickets have also experienced some changes over the years.

"Alumni tickets have changed," Smith said. "The look has changed. There are new pictures every year and there is a bar code this year that wasn't there before. We have also used rainbow and roll tickets in the past."

Thuma said he would not take the risk of altering his ticket but knew how it could be done with computer software.

"Personally, I wouldn't change my ticket because if everyone did it would be chaos, but changing a ticket would be very easy to do," Thuma said.

RMC Events, Inc., staffs ticket checkers for football games. Marc Satori, event manager at RMC Events, could not comment when asked how ticket scanners distinguish counterfeit tickets and what procedures are taken when one is found.

When designing the tickets, designers aim to make tickets that are easy to read yet hard to counterfeit.

Smith said no decision has been made on the future changes to the form of student tickets.

"I'm not sure. It depends on the situation," Smith said.