This is our house! - Experiment ups early turnout

It might not have rivaled The Line, but at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday an unmistakable sight appeared outside of the Palestra.

Ninety minutes before the Penn men's basketball team tipped off against Saint Joseph's - and 30 minutes before the gates opened - fans were lined up, braving the cold as they waited to get inside.

The early crowd was the result of an Athletics Department experiment. Sections 119, 120, 219 and 220 were open to all student ticket-holders, regardless of their normal seating location. The policy had been announced in October.

"It was a big success," said Brian Head, Athletic Department Marketing Coordinator. "The students I've talked to thought it was good, and operationally it went very well."

The idea emerged from an Athletic Department brainstorming session over the summer, during which officials discussed how to encourage students to arrive at games earlier.

Many other schools only issue general admissions tickets. At Duke, for example, the line for seats for any game can form days - or, for contests against archrival UNC, one month - before game time.

Head said that the policies of other schools had no impact on Penn's choice.

But the decision to try the policy against Saint Joseph's was not a coincidence either.

"St. Joe's fans always show up very early," said Head. "We wanted to have our fans to match them there."

It worked - nearly all of the sell-out crowd of 8,722 were in their seats before tip-off.

Students were generally supportive of the initiative.

Freshman Andy Katz paints himself for every game, with him and three friends rotating which letter they bear so that together they spell "Penn." On Saturday, they had the chance to show their colorful chests from the second row, right behind the cheerleaders.

"It definitely rewards people who care about the game," said Katz, who says he arrived around 5:30. "Definitely more of the bigger fans showed up earlier, so they would be closer to the court and have more of an impact on the game."

College senior Eric Meder was less fortunate. He arrived at 6:15, still 45 minutes early, but had to sit in the upper tier, in a worse location than his usual seats.

Yet when asked whether he was bothered, he replied, "Nah, it was fine. I should have gotten there earlier."

He called the policy "fair" and added that "it creates a better atmosphere for the fans and for the players."

Some season ticket holders did object, arguing that they earned their seats by getting a good spot on The Line, but overall support was overwhelmingly positive.

The question now: what comes next?

Head said that over this summer, the Athletic Department will consider open seating for a couple of games next season, although he cautioned that it's too early to predict what they will decide.

"We'd have to come up with a way that still preserved the sanctity of The Line," he said, referring to the two-day tradition by which students choose season tickets. "We don't want to hurt that. That tradition is far more important than the actual general admission seating."

However, neither Katz nor Meder were worried about the effect on The Line.

"Even if you don't do The Line, you can still get good seats," said Meder, who has been to the event only once in four years. "It might impact The Line, but I don't think The Line is very important."

Katz also thought open seating is more fair.

"The Line is more luck, finding out where it is," he said, "whereas open seating is more like true fans get to the front."

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