The Council of Representatives discussed alternative ways to conduct football ticket exchanges at their meeting Tuesday.
The Ticket Office discontinued the basic program this year of allowing a designated number of students to exchange for a fee their student ticket for a general admission ticket. It cited abuses of the system, including scalping of tickets, as a reason to end the program. This year, students were able to enter a lottery for the ability to exchange their USC tickets because that game occurred over fall break.
But student government approached the Ticket Office and began talks to bring back the option of exchanging student passes for general admission tickets, student body vice president Maris Braun said Tuesday.
"It's pretty unique having a ticket office that is very dedicated to giving the student body as many chances to see the team as they possibly can," Braun said.
She said the Ticket Office was cooperative when the Student Union Board organized a ticket exchange for the Oct. 20 game against USC - an exception that was allowed because, the Ticket Office reasoned, many students would be leaving Notre Dame for fall break.
"The Ticket Office was really pleased with the student-run exchange," Braun said. "In the future we should look to other student organizations like student government and some of the class councils to organize it."
COR members, however, suggested making further revisions to the process in which the exchanges could be conducted if the program were reinstated.
The USC exchange this year had students entering a lottery for a chance to exchange their tickets. But the selected entries were not notified they had won until a week before the game.
Such short notice doesn't give students' outside friends or relatives enough time to plan a trip to Notre Dame, several COR members said.
"I wanted to exchange a ticket for a friend, but I didn't find out until a week before that I had won the lottery, so it ended up not working out," said Kadeja Gaines, treasurer of the Student Union Board and a Georgia native.
Because it is so difficult to find a reasonable plane ticket a few days before the expected departure date, several COR members suggested holding the lotteries several weeks in advance.
"The purpose of the program is to get siblings out to games and if you live far away you won't be able to get them out [here] with too little notice," senior class vice president Chris Doughty said.
To counter fears that students would use this extra time to sell the tickets for a profit, Doughty suggested that the name of the person the student is buying the ticket for be printed on it.
