For the first time, DePauw opted to sell online tickets for the Monon Bell game, rather than utilize paper tickets as they have in the past.
The result: 1,000 tickets left unsold two days before kickoff.
"Every year they've come close to selling out, if they haven't sold out," said Lisa Link from the Athletic Office. Link handled Monon ticket sales this year.
"We're pretty close to being on track with that, and I anticipate that we'll sell a lot within the next couple of days as well," she said.
Link offered a possible explanation as to why the tailgating spots sold quicker than tickets.
"I think the difference is with the tickets, you have about 6,000 and with the parking spots, because they only have about 250, they went a lot quicker just because of the quantity for each," Link said.
While Wabash University is still selling physical tickets, Link thinks that the online system has gone well.
"It's easy to use, and I haven't had any issues with it so far," Link said.
The move to an online system was a result of several issues that occurred in 2011, namely that some people did not receive their tickets in time for the game. That year, students, faculty and staff were given their tickets in the Union Building. They were required to present IDs, and they would be marked off of a list once they had received their ticket.
However, it was sometimes difficult for those outside these categories to get their tickets. While they could be ordered online, they had to be sent in the mail.
"We had a lot of problems with the system because it relied on the Post Office," said Jeanne Servais, who sold tickets both in 2009 and 2011.
As a result, ticket sales had to be cut off a week and a half before the game to ensure that there would be adequate time for the tickets to be received.
"Even with that cutoff time, some people never received their tickets in the mail so we had some very late deliveries," Servais said, "which put us in a difficult position in that we were having to give out duplicate tickets."
Servais said that she does not believe that DePauw sold out the Monon game in 2011, but she could no longer access the information. However, she noted that they sold out in 2009 within a couple of days after ticket sales were made available to the public.
Sophomore Erin Crouse liked that she did not necessarily have to try to make a special trip to the office for her ticket.
"I think it made it easier in that [students] can do it on their own time," Crouse said.
However, Crouse ended up missing the last day that students could retrieve their ticket by themselves online and had to go to the athletic office to retrieve her free ticket anyway. She believes that having multiple email reminders about the deadline to use the code or making the code usable at all times could have resolved the issue for students.
"We're all busy, and we might have forgotten to write it into our schedule," Crouse said.
Link offered some advice for those who received a free ticket.
"For the game," Link said, "everyone who received a free ticket has to bring their paper ticket printed out and their DePauw ID with them to get into the game."