Palestra hoops line hits snag with ticket sales

Most students enjoyed the campout until computer problems struck Sunday morning. A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to the Palestra this weekend. More than 150 diehard hoops fans brought out their television sets and fleece pullovers for the annual men's basketball ticket line, a Penn tradition designed to offer the best seats in the arena to the students most willing to sacrifice their time and comfort for the privilege. But miscommunication, organizational snafus and computer glitches contributed to what many students described as a frustrating, time-consuming experience -- feelings exacerbated by a smaller-than-expected number of seats in the coveted courtside chairback section. The problems left some students questioning the entire process. "It seems a little more disorganized this year," first-year Education graduate student Lindsay Lion said while waiting outside the ticket office in Weightman Hall. "I don't know if it's a sign of things to come, but it's something to be aware of so it doesn't happen again next year. Lion, a 1998 College graduate who has waited in "the line" for each of the last five years -- more than any other student present -- added that the process in general had "a very different atmosphere" from her experiences in years past. The tradition of waiting in line for tickets dates back at least 30 years. When Steve Bilsky became athletic director in 1994, one of his first -- and most popular -- actions was making the line more orderly and fun for students, partly in response to a near-riot at the 1993 line, where students were trampled and one suffered a concussion. The line was ordered according to a system of numbered wristbands, which were first distributed Thursday morning at 37th Street and Locust Walk. Groups of up to four people were allowed to register and each group had to have at least one person stationed at the Palestra beginning at 9 a.m. Friday. New groups were allowed to join the line at any time during the weekend, and 120 students from 32 groups were registered by the first sleepover Friday night. By 12:50 a.m. Sunday morning, 154 students were on line, and more than 200 were prepared to purchase the 13-ticket package at about 8 a.m. when officials instructed new arrivals to go home, lest they wait four hours or more for tickets. All prospective ticketholders were sequestered in the Palestra beginning at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. That evening's festivities featured intra-squad scrimmages by both the men's and women's hoops teams and a long series of giveaways presided over by Bilsky. For many of the giveaways -- which included autographed basketballs, tickets to Penn road games, basketball jerseys and lunch with Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell -- students had to outshoot Bilsky's son Jeff from the foul line or behind the three-point arc. Most were unsuccessful, as the young hoopster bested nine competitors, sending them back to the bleachers with consolation water bottles. The line also featured free cheesesteaks, donuts and Penn t-shirts. But no amount of free food could quiet the restless fans several hours later when the first signs of problems emerged. Technical problems arose in the early morning with the computer officials hoped to set up in the Palestra. Several of the student "line leaders" overseeing the wristbanded masses said that the computer failed to establish a network connection with the ticketing office. "It worked on Friday," Athletic Department Ticketing Manager Peggy Kowalski said. "I don't know what happened." As the 6 a.m. deadline came and went without a single ticket sold, students expressed their dissatisfaction with the delays. "[Couldn't] they know that the computer wasn't going to work at 3 a.m.?" College sophomore Ron Lin asked. "That's pretty incompetent." Others were less focused in their criticism. Several students rearranged the lettering on a snack bar menu board to spell out, "The line sucks my ass." Kowalski insisted that the computer troubles were a blessing in disguise, as the ticket office in Weightman -- to which waiting students were ushered in groups of 10 -- was equipped with more computer workstations. She added that the new ticketing system, under which tickets are printed only as they are bought, reduces waste and permits tracking of individual ticketholders. "We opted in past years to sell in the Palestra, but as it turned out, because of the volume and the computer printing, it was better for us to work in Weightman," Kowalski said. But students' gripes only continued with the long line outside Weightman, which was filled with rumors about the declining availability of choice seats. "This has been a travesty," College sophomore Mike Sinoway said. "I feel like I live in Russia. I expect to get to the front of the ticket line and receive half a loaf of bread, a potato and some vodka." Sinoway, who won a lunch with coach Fran Dunphy in Saturday night's drawings, added that the ticket line ran "very smoothly" last year. The last straw for some students was when the ticket office ran out of the Palestra's red chairback seats. Two 119-seat sections of chairbacks were up for public sale, with most of the students under the impression that one was for alumni and the other for students. However, a chunk of the student seats were reserved for alumni, with Kowalski explaining that alumni "pay three times as much." While students pay $80 for a season of chairbacks, alumni must cough up $260. Though Kowalski added that alumni have been seated in the chairback section east of the midcourt line "since time immemorial," many students were not appeased. "If the alumni are as loud and vocal as the students, that's fine," College senior Kevin Stengle said. "But they're going to be the people telling the students three rows in front of them to sit down." But not all prospective ticketholders wanted to dwell on the negative. "We're having a fun time," Engineering sophomore Theo LeCompte said. "We got some sleep and we're here." Bilsky could not be reached for comment last night.