Students will have to physically pick up their football tickets before game day after Clemson revised its ticket system for the 2023 football season.
After testing out virtual tickets for a handful of years, Clemson Athletics is implementing a wristband system that will require students to pick up RFID-chipped wristbands at Littlejohn Coliseum. Students may pick up their wristbands from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on the Wednesday, Thursday or Friday before a game day, according to an email sent to students on Aug. 31. The wristbands will serve as the tickets for the football game.
With the new policy, students will no longer be able to virtually transfer tickets amongst each other, according to Clemson’s ticket office. Instead, the wristband can be given to another student after being picked up by the original recipient.
When picking up a ticket, students will be required to present their CUID. On game day, students’ wristbands must be scanned to enter Memorial Stadium, according to the email.
For each football game, there will be three different colored wristbands corresponding to one of three student sections: upper deck, lower deck and The Hill, Clemson Athletics spokesperson Jeff Kallin told The Tiger.
According to Kallin, athletics hopes the change from digital tickets to wristbands will cut back on wait times at entrance gates. Athletics also hopes to see a reduction in attempts to enter the stadium with fraudulent or screenshotted tickets, as well as a decrease in ticket sale scams that may happen in a ticket exchange chat on the popular messaging app GroupMe.
In the past, there has been at least one case of an individual stealing a student’s identity to scam others, as The Tiger reported in October 2022. There have also been cases of students sending money to other individuals for a student ticket and not receiving any ticket.
In response to the ticket scam concerns, Kallin told The Tiger last year that students should remain cautious.
“Clemson Athletics continues to work closely with Student Government to provide as much flexibility and opportunity as possible for our students,” Kallin said at the time. “Fans and students are encouraged to be diligent when purchasing tickets through unofficial sources.”
The change comes roughly three years since Clemson Athletics adopted a mobile-only ticket system in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak. At that time, Athletics also said the switch to mobile-only was to prevent ticket scams and to reduce buildup at the entrance gates.
All student ticket lottery policies remain the same, Kallin added.
Clemson will have its first home game on Saturday when the Tigers play Charleston Southern at 2:15 p.m.
