When the NC State football team has a home game, Carter-Finley Stadium is the place to be. Airplanes fly overhead, fireworks soar into the sky and fans cheer on the Pack — though many students are left out of the fun.
There are more students who want to watch NC State football than there are tickets available. How the sought-after tickets are distributed is determined by the Student Ticket Advisory Committee.
The committee consists of five members of the student body, as well as four University staff members. One of those members is Catherine Carter, a fourth-year studying political science and the student body director of athletics.
“Football and men’s basketball tickets are based on a weighted lottery system,” Carter said. “Freshmen start with three points, sophomores with five points, juniors with seven points and seniors with nine points each year.”
Those who collected a particularly large number of loyalty points last year receive up to three student loyalty points in the new semester. However, this only applies to a small number of students. Students had to have between 32.5 and 37 loyalty points last year to receive one extra loyalty point this year.
From there, students get one point when they attend a football game. Anyone who gets a ticket and does not go to the game is deducted a loyalty point.
“If you can’t go, you should return your ticket,” Carter said. “It’s really easy, and that way, somebody else can go, too.”
This function is available on the student ticket website under the My Tickets section. If students don’t receive a ticket on the first round, they can try again during the redistribution period when returned tickets are distributed.
Carter said it’s generally better to start requesting tickets early in the season rather than waiting for the UNC-Chapel Hill game to request a ticket for the first time. Additionally, students can earn an additional loyalty point by scanning a ticket at least 45 minutes before the start of the game.
If a student’s ticket is scanned incorrectly, they may wrongly lose a loyalty point. Carter said tickets can get incorrectly scanned during big rushes of students entering the stadium right before the game. Carter said if students have incorrectly lost a point, they can reach out to her and her team.
Carter also said she urges students not to sell their student tickets. She said this is a violation of student conduct, and if students are caught, their ability to request a ticket will be revoked for the year.
It can be difficult for people with few loyalty points to get tickets to football and men’s basketball games, making it difficult to earn loyalty points.
In the lottery, students with the most loyalty points receive the first 25% of the student ticket allotment. A weighted lottery dictates who receives the remaining 75%.
Student government selects one game from each Olympic sport every year that students can earn a loyalty point for attending. This gives first- and second-year students who start the year with fewer points extra chances to earn points. Students can find information on those select games at gopack.com.
“All you do is you show up, and we’ll scan your student ID,” Carter said. “You don’t even have to register for those games.”
The Student Wolfpack Club offers another option for securing tickets. Out of the 10,000 student football tickets, up to 601 seats are reserved for the band, and up to 779 are reserved for members of the Student Wolfpack Club.
Maggie Nichols, a third-year studying accounting and president of the Student Wolfpack Club, said the club supports non-revenue athletics teams on campus such as soccer, volleyball and baseball.
“We pick a handful of every sport to go to during the season,” Nichols said. “That’s how you earn points toward your Student Wolfpack Club account and then we award football and men’s basketball [tickets] based off of these points from those events.”
Nichols said 2,000 to 3,000 Student Wolfpack Club members typically apply for the 779 Student Wolfpack Club football tickets.
The major difference between the Student Wolfpack Club system and the regular online student ticket distribution is that the time members spend at selected non-revenue games factors into the number of Student Wolfpack Club points they earn. Students who stay longer at games are more likely to receive a ticket.
Additionally, Student Wolfpack Club members get an extra half of a student loyalty point. Hannah Harrison, a fourth-year studying elementary education, said she usually receives her tickets through the Student Wolfpack Club system, although the extra points help if she requests a ticket.
“A half point may not sound like it makes a difference, but it does,” Harrison said.
The Student Wolfpack Club ticket registration opens earlier than the normal online ticket distribution, so if a member doesn’t get a ticket through the Student Wolfpack Club, they can still try through the regular student lottery system.
Student Wolfpack Club membership costs students $30 per semester or $100 for four years. More information about membership can be found on the Student Wolfpack Club website.
