The End

Football Season is over. I hope that you had fun, and that we made it easier for you to get tickets to the games. I don't know if we'll have this set up again next year. I think probably not.

Extras for Virginia Tech

The game starts at 7:30pm tomorrow, but to give everyone a fair chance, you can't see Pam about extra tickets until 12:00pm.

Virginia Tech on Thursday Night

One of the biggest games of the year is Thursday night, and your tickets are waiting for you in Pam Halverson's office, now Klaus 2358. It should be a competitive game, and anyway, everyone is usually very excited about the national television exposure. Only one college game per week is played on a Thursday night, and so it gets a lot of attention throughout the country. The game starts at 7:30pm. Don't miss it.

Army Game (Homecoming)

This just out in email:

We have your tickets for the Army game and a lot of extras also. On Tuesday and Wednesday you can claim your tickets from Gail Palmer in Klaus 2308. On Thursday and Friday instead see Pam Halverson in Klaus 2350a. Beginning Friday morning, we'll make the extra tickets available to everyone. As usual, assume that their office hours are 8:30am to 4:00pm for this purpose.

Clemson Extras at the Tailgate

There are about 100 tickets left for the Clemson game. We don't think they'll all be claimed by the end of the day, so Gail will take the remaining ones to the tailgate on Saturday. Drop by Klaus in the afternoon before the game to get some food, something to drink, and a ticket for your friend.

Update (9/28): Hey! Don't you guys know that Clemson is a big rival of ours? Why don't you want to go?

Clemson Tickets

Email just out:

Tech hosts #13 Clemson this week, and the game starts at 3:30pm on Saturday. Your tickets for the game are now available for you to collect. Please note that there is a slight change in our pick-up procedure this week. If you go to Klaus today, go to Gail Palmer's office, 2308 in Klaus, instead of Pam's office. If you go on Thursday or Friday, the procedure is as normal, and you should go to Pam's office, 2350a. Extras will be made available on Friday.

The First Sponsored Tailgate

On September 29th, Tech hosts Clemson, and everyone in our block is invited to a tailgate on the same day. We'll have a spot somewhere around Klaus, but probably not on the lawn, which has been reserved by another group. By noon, burgers, veggie burgers, hot dogs, chips, and drinks will be there for anyone who wants to drop by before the game, which doesn't start until 3:30pm. It's all free to you, of course, and if you want to bring some friends along, don't worry if they're not in our block.

Did I forget anything?

Update (9/26): The tailgate will be under the bridge at Klaus, and will be from about 12:00pm to 3:00pm. The game starts at 3:30pm.

Update (9/28): If you don't see us under the bridge, we're in the courtyard between Klaus and Van Leer. That space was reserved, but the reservation was canceled, so we're moving in on it.

Block Seating

From a member of our block,

I just have a question about the location of our block, and how that works. Are block seats given out in any particular way? I know some blocks end up with overall better seats than others and I was wondering if that was due to how early they arrive or some other policy which I am not aware of. If you know anything about this please let me know.

I didn't know the answer to that question, but Michael Santoro, one of the organizers of our block, had this to say,

We actually had this discussion on Monday morning. If you turn in a large block of tickets, you are given seats in the North end of the stadium. These are graduate student seats and will be together, but people don't really keep to their assigned seats.

There were a couple of ECE graduate students that were waiting in line behind us because they wanted tickets for the South end of the stadium. I think that you have to request these tickets.

Fraternities and other groups like The Swarm will care if they sit together, so don't try to squeeze into those areas, but otherwise it's up to you where you sit, and the graduate students in our block certainly don't have to sit together.

UPDATE (9/13): From Charlie Camp, another organizer of our block:

...our block this week is in the South end of the stadium whereas the general issue tickets that I received were for the North end; thus, I am completely clueless as to the decision making by the ticket office as to where the block is seated.

I guess that no one really knows the procedure. I think that the official policies of the ticket office are not being clearly communicated to the students actually running the window.

Boston College Tickets

Tech plays Boston College at 8:00pm Saturday. The tickets should be in Pam's office (Klaus 2350a) by 1pm tomorrow. Get yours before the end of the day Thursday, and check back on Friday if you want an extra.

First Game Reaction?

I know a lot of people in our block were going to their first ever football game. If you were one of them, tell us what you thought!

Camping and Guarantees

Some questions from a member of the block:

1. Do grads have to camp for these tickets? Or do we get them as part of the deal last year after the hike in the AA fees that grads were not willing to approve but got approved anyways?

2. How can we ensure that we will get UGA tickets? Last time I saw
about 10 people willing to camp.

You, yourself, don't have to camp for tickets. That's one of the advantages you get by signing up for our block. Someone in our organizing committee is going to take our batch of vouchers to the ticket office and camp for you for every game. Even for the Samford game, our guys went to the office at 5:30am to wait in line before the office opened at 9:00am, just in case there was something broken in the ticket policy.

I can't tell you anything about the AA fees or changes to the rules, but the policy now is to have a separate line at the ticket office for graduate students and a reserved allotment of tickets for graduate students for every game. Moreover, if that allotment runs out before all the other tickets run out, the students at the window are supposed to start giving graduate students tickets from the undergraduate allotment. That gives graduate students a big advantage over undergraduate students even if they aren't in our block. Now, there was supposed to be a separate line for claiming vouchers too, but that wasn't the case, so we're still a little nervous ourselves.

Gail is very worried about graduate students being overlooked, and she's called the ticket-office managers several times to confirm the details of their policy. I'm sure she'll send our guys to camp for the Georgia game. Incidentally, the tricky rules for tickets were the chief motivation for Gail to create this block for graduate students in our department in the first place. Most students didn't know what to do.

If you want to take matters into your own hands at anytime you are welcome to collect your remaining vouchers from Gail. They're yours after all, but I think everyone has a big advantage in being a graduate student and a big advantage in being in our group, despite the lack of a guarantee.

If anyone is capable of comparing this year's ticket policy with last year's policy, especially in how they treat graduate students, please leave a comment here.

First Round of Leftovers

Pam says she has more than sixty tickets left for the Samford game. Therefore, if you couldn't make it to her office today, you can probably still get a ticket tomorrow. It's just that you're no longer guaranteed your ticket.

If you want an extra it looks like you'll be able to get one pretty easily.

If you submitted your vouchers late for this game, we told you that we couldn't submit your voucher and you're not guaranteed a ticket. However, since there are extras, you should still be able to go.

First Round of Ticket Distribution

Tickets for the Samford game are now available for you in Pam Halverson's office, which is Klaus 2350a. We'll hold tickets for you until the end of the day (4:00pm) on Thursday. Starting Friday we'll try to get rid of the extras by making them available for people in our group who want extras.

Bring your ID!

Email List

Everyone's email address has been added to a Georgia Tech mailing list. The address for the list is ece-grad-tailgate@lists.gatech.edu, but to spare everyone from email chatter no one is allowed to send email through the list but me. If you want to talk to others on the list, you should make a comment here.

Getting Started

We have 145 students in the block now, which far exceeds the expectations of everyone organizing it. We just received two more voucher sets today, so maybe we're not done collecting them yet.

We'll rip off the Samford vouchers from everyone's set and redeem them in the morning on Tuesday, September 4th. You can pick them up from Pam Halverson (Klaus 2350a) starting on Wednesday, September 5th. The game starts at 1:30pm on Saturday, the 8th.

Please get your ticket before the end of the day on Thursday of that week. We don't want to be left with a bunch of unused tickets, and we need a day to distribute the unwanted ones to people in the group who need extras.

Today is the Day

It's August 20th, which means that every graduate student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering should run by the ticket office at the football stadium and present their student ID to claim their vouchers. Make sure you ask for graduate vouchers. I'm not sure that they'll examine each voucher in our set when we redeem them for each game, but we won't have to worry if they're all the right kind.

The next step is to label the last voucher with your name and email address. Then drop them off at the office of Gail Palmer, Klaus 2308. After that, you're set. We'll redeem vouchers for tickets every week before a game, and you can pick up your tickets from us at your leisure instead of rushing to the ticket office.

Any questions?

Goals for the Blog

This blog is to coordinate graduate student tailgating in the future. Tailgating locations and times will be posted here along with copies of the promotional posters and instructions for getting tickets. This blog is also to serve as a forum for asking questions about tickets and tailgating.