For this year's incarnation of the annual tradition known as the Line, Penn basketball fans won't only be taking their sleeping bags - they'll be taking a road trip.
The event will take place the weekend of Nov. 3-4, when Penn students will first be able to purchase season tickets for the men's basketball team.
This year, the athletic department has thrown in a new twist: All students in the Line will go to the Penn-Princeton football game that Saturday afternoon in Princeton, N.J.
"We're trying to do things unique every year," said Brian Head, who coordinates promotions for Penn's athletic marketing department.
When officials were planning the Line, Head said that they thought, "What better thing can we do than bring the students to Princeton?"
The Line takes place the weekend between the official opening of basketball practice and the start of the regular season, when Penn's football team is not at home.
In the past, students have been released at around 8:30 a.m., after a night in the Palestra to go home and change before returning for the day's activities, usually consisting of a home football game. But this year, they will return via bus.
To Head, the Line is all about the experience, and he said that his office's goal is for it to be memorable.
Aside from the game on Saturday, the Line is relatively simple and hasn't been changed in any significant wa from previous years.
Some time earlier in that week, the athletic department will announce a secret location somewhere on campus via its Web site and PennPhone service. Student groups of up to four then have to arrive as a group for the actual "line." There, they get bracelets in the order in which they arrive, which later determine the ticket-selecting order.
On Nov. 3, students will arrive at the Palestra at around 5:30 and check in with students known as "line leaders," who are largely responsible for the event running smoothly.
The students will then watch the Penn volleyball game against Brown, followed by the men and women's hoops teams making some sort of appearance, the exact nature of which has not been finalized.
Head said that there will also be other programming that evening, which is still in the works.
Throughout the two-day event, there are periodic mandatory check-ins. If a student fails to check in, his or her group is dropped out of the line and only gets its pick of seats afterward.
In the end, according to Head, the Line is all about the fans.
"The biggest thing is the experience," he said.
