FCS Level Student Attendance: JMU sells out all 8,000 student tickets for home opener

[JmuSkinsfan]

Does any other school at the FCS level have anywhere close to this kind of support from their students? Granted, "selling out" is not exactly true since the tickets are free ... but 8,000 students went online and claimed their tickets for the home opener Saturday...

Before the expansion, student tickets were capped at 5,000 ... which always sold out. Many of us, though, did not expect an additional 3,000 students to step up and claim ... but they have ...

8,000 of the 19,000 students at JMU will be in Bridgeforth on Saturday at 6 pm ... incredible

[StorminASU]

Considering App doesn't cap their student seats, but there is still a line 2+ hours before kickoff to get in the stadium, and the student sections are always completely crammed full, I would say we have that kind of support without the hassle of having to hold a ticket.

[JmuSkinsfan]

Considering App doesn't cap their student seats, but there is still a line 2+ hours before kickoff to get in the stadium, and the student sections are always completely crammed full, I would say we have that kind of support without the hassle of having to hold a ticket.

Nice. I know App has large student support ... but you guys are a little smaller than we are ... 14k? Still .. I think any school that can get 40-50% of their student body to show up to a game is pretty impressive ... Unless you are Richmond and that requires you to just have 500 show up.

JMU used to let you just show up and show your student ID card. Then for big games (HC and Family weekend) you had to show up at the ticket office and get a hard copy ticket by swiping your ID card. Now they've gone high-tech and you can log into your account on the JMUsports website and have a ticket digitally loaded onto your ID card which is swiped at the gate. Either way, 8,000 students made some effort to get online and claim a ticket ... I'm floored.

[Grizzaholic]

Not to be THAT guy, but when you are giving out as many tickets as the students want for free, why wouldn't they show?

[JmuSkinsfan]

Not to be THAT guy, but when you are giving out as many tickets as the students want for free, why wouldn't they show?

Agreed ... but in the past JMU only alloted 5,000 ... so the assumption was the bump of 3,000 would make it tough to get them all claimed ...

8,000 is about 42% of the student body ... I think that's impressive.

[GaSouthern]

GSU will easily have 8K students in the stands saturday.

[biggie]

Nice. I know App has large student support ... but you guys are a little smaller than we are ... 14k? Still .. I think any school that can get 40-50% of their student body to show up to a game is pretty impressive ... Unless you are Richmond and that requires you to just have 500 show up.

JMU used to let you just show up and show your student ID card. Then for big games (HC and Family weekend) you had to show up at the ticket office and get a hard copy ticket by swiping your ID card. Now they've gone high-tech and you can log into your account on the JMUsports website and have a ticket digitally loaded onto your ID card which is swiped at the gate. Either way, 8,000 students made some effort to get online and claim a ticket ... I'm floored.
App's enrollment is around 17k. Would say close to, if not over, 10k show up each home game. We have all lower sections on the West Side, 2 lower sections on East side, and now 1,500 bleacher seats in North Endzone for only students. It is standing room only and a mad rush when the gates open 2 hrs before kickoff to get a good standing place.

Do believe students now have to print off a ticket from the internets (at least the last couple years).

[HailSzczur]

Not to be THAT guy, but when you are giving out as many tickets as the students want for free, why wouldn't they show?

I ask the same question every week when I go to our games. They even have it set up where going to football games increases your odds at basketball tickets and it doesnt help

[JmuSkinsfan]

App's enrollment is around 17k. Would say close to, if not over, 10k show up each home game. We have all lower sections on the West Side, 2 lower sections on East side, and now 1,500 bleacher seats in North Endzone for only students. It is standing room only and a mad rush when the gates open 2 hrs before kickoff to get a good standing place.

Do believe students now have to print off a ticket from the internets (at least the last couple years).

That's impressive. I figured the big FCS schools would attract large student populations. I think JMU, Georgia Southern, App State, Montana, etc have the culture on campus where large numbers are expected and impresive. I was just surprised with JMUs number. Students have always showed up and "sold out" the 5,000 alotment before. In the past JMU just did first come first serve with students and I know they had to turn away about 1,500 for the App State game in 2008 ... so 6,500 would have been our largest likely student crowd ... so I never really expected that they'd have 8,000 claimed. JMU started doing online print offs and now do digital tickets ... mainly because so many were turned away for the App State game in 2008 ... so thanks for that ;)

[boonedocks]

App's enrollment is around 17k. Would say close to, if not over, 10k show up each home game. We have all lower sections on the West Side, 2 lower sections on East side, and now 1,500 bleacher seats in North Endzone for only students. It is standing room only and a mad rush when the gates open 2 hrs before kickoff to get a good standing place.

Do believe students now have to print off a ticket from the internets (at least the last couple years).

Yes, students have to print tickets from the series of tubes now. Also, we have 9-10 thousand at home games which is over 50% of our ~17K enrollment.

Good for JMU, the more students the merrier in my opinion. They are the loudest and most fun.

[bjtheflamesfan]

In the last few seasons, its pretty rare to get less than 8,000 at LU football games (they packed the student section when JMU came to town a couple years ago in the pouring rain if Im remembering correctly). Expecting another full student section when the Colonials come to town this weekend

[URMite]

Nice. I know App has large student support ... but you guys are a little smaller than we are ... 14k? Still .. I think any school that can get 40-50% of their student body to show up to a game is pretty impressive ... Unless you are Richmond and that requires you to just have 500 show up.

JMU used to let you just show up and show your student ID card. Then for big games (HC and Family weekend) you had to show up at the ticket office and get a hard copy ticket by swiping your ID card. Now they've gone high-tech and you can log into your account on the JMUsports website and have a ticket digitally loaded onto your ID card which is swiped at the gate. Either way, 8,000 students made some effort to get online and claim a ticket ... I'm floored.

First I want to say that is impressive. It is harder to keep up the percentages as your school grows.

As for us, supposedly we do have this year's first game student section sold out with a waiting list (down to 1200 from 1600 seats last year). 42% of our undergrad = 1,280, so we are starting off good. But if memory serves we sold out first game last year, had about 2/3 at homecoming & Family weekend, plus 1/3 for the other 3 games. Which would be about 5,500 & 2,800 with your enrollment.

I can't imagine your attendance falling that much even in a bad season. JMU seems to do very well at retaining attendance. We can get students early in the year and then it falls off. We do well with season ticketholders. We just need to find a way to build more casual attendance.

But to bring the focus of this post back to JMU, that is a 60% increase in students. If you can get half that in non-students (+30%), you would have 80% of capacity - not bad at all for a first year in one of the largest stadiums.

[JmuSkinsfan]

First I want to say that is impressive. It is harder to keep up the percentages as your school grows.

As for us, supposedly we do have this year's first game student section sold out with a waiting list (down to 1200 from 1600 seats last year). 42% of our undergrad = 1,280, so we are starting off good. But if memory serves we sold out first game last year, had about 2/3 at homecoming & Family weekend, plus 1/3 for the other 3 games. Which would be about 5,500 & 2,800 with your enrollment.

I can't imagine your attendance falling that much even in a bad season. JMU seems to do very well at retaining attendance. We can get students early in the year and then it falls off. We do well with season ticketholders. We just need to find a way to build more casual attendance.

But to bring the focus of this post back to JMU, that is a 60% increase in students. If you can get half that in non-students (+30%), you would have 80% of capacity - not bad at all for a first year in one of the largest stadiums.

This has already been discussed in another thread, but we've already sold out Homecoming and Family Weekend games (24,900) ... plus this weekend is a virtual sellout (less than 700 tickets remain ... could easily be taken care of with walk-ups and last minute purchases tomorrow) ...

Maine (Oct. 8) and Rhode Island (November) are both within 2,000 of selling out ... so as long as the students show up in big numbers ... you're looking at selling out the season ... which is far exceeding the expectations of anyone going into the season...

As of now we're looking at averaging at least 24k ... and that's assuming no more tickets are sold for Rhode Island and Maine ... but both will likely sell out in no time.

[URMite]

For some reason, I thought the new capacity was 26,900. I was thinking that 22,000 average would be a success. But with your info, >95% is amazing.

[rufus]

For some reason, I thought the new capacity was 26,900. I was thinking that 22,000 average would be a success. But with your info, >95% is amazing.

If you look at some of the drawings by the architectural firm, it would appear that total capacity is just under 27,000. The official capacity per fire code is 24,900. Because we use student tickets, there is not much potential for overflow crowds.

[eaglewraith]

Our highest student turnout was against McNeese in 2005. 11,000 students showed up which was a great deal over 50% of the student population at the time.

We are probably close to those numbers every game the last couple of years though, the student section is packed and spills over into the adjacent hill.

[Friend of Pounce]

I'm impressed. I hope that as tradition builds at GSU, we'll have similar stories of student support to share. Turnout for the first game was great...hoping for great things Saturday!

[Apphole]

Pretty sure we get 10k+ Students to every regular season home game. You just slide your card and go it. Our students have also been compared to the Cameron Crazies. Are your 8k gonna jump, scream and bang on the seats for every defensive play? Oh man I can't wait for Saturday.

[frozennorth]

Und is doing pretty good if they get 1000 lately. I think ndsu does 5k for its students.

[AppStsGr8]

I can't wait to see the App students this week. The new north endzone bleachers are very close to the end of the field. Those 1500 seats will be all students. I'm still wondering how the visiting team will get from the fieldhouse to the visiting sideline with those bleachers in place. Sections 101-107 (essentially entire lower tier behind home team) are still reserved for students as are sections 114, 217, and 218 on the west side. The band will be in section 113 on the west side again.

What I love about sitting in the old folks section watching those 10,000 or so students is watching them stand when the band comes in and only sit down for half-time. The players love the student support. It also makes a great recruiting tool. Go App!

[GannonFan]

If you look at some of the drawings by the architectural firm, it would appear that total capacity is just under 27,000. The official capacity per fire code is 24,900. Because we use student tickets, there is not much potential for overflow crowds.

Is that the capacity including media, players on the field, workers, etc? Thread on another site actually had a DNR article that indicated some of those have been counted in the past at JMU. Just thought that was interesting.

As for the student attendance, I wonder if the amount of money that is paid in terms of student fees is directly related to how many students show up? JMU's got a pretty steep student fee that goes into activities - certainly puts an emphasis on making use of that money and getting to the game.

[The Eagle's Cliff]

We don't have "tickets" for students and there is no cap. Their ID's are scanned and they have a reserved section from the 50 yard line back to the endzone and when that fills up, they're allowed to pile in from the opposite 20 yard line to the endzone. Student Eagle Club members pay $20 a year and have "the best seats in the house" for football, basketball, and baseball. Our stadium expansion will begin with double-decking the student side and filling in to the new building.

As was mentioned, we average about 8,000 students per game with probably 10,000 for night games and fewer than 8,000 for close-to-noon kickoffs. I'd like to see the counting method changed to just count tickets sold instead of bodies so we could average 32K.

[apaladin]

I think the ASU peeps are way overstating the students at home games. 10k would just about fill up the home side. Just sayin'

[Mountaineer]

I think the ASU peeps are way overstating the students at home games. 10k would just about fill up the home side. Just sayin'

Not sure why the constant disparaging of student support at ASU. Is it because the folks that keep raising the issue have students, like at Furman, that couldn't care less about their team? :o

See the bottom here:

http://www.goasu.com//pics/800/CC/CCHVBBKWGMZZTJT.20091024233836.jpg

Packed like sardines. The kids are piled on top of each other - standing room only.

http://www.goasu.com//pics21/640/RW/RWPHWFOYSWOUQZW.20091024233830.jpg

There are another three sections in the east stands just like this. Plenty of students sit and stand on the hill. This year another 1,500 will be going into the north end zone.

It's entirely conceivable that ASU has nearly five figures when it comes to student attendance. Lots of sour grapes out there.

And congrats to the JMU students for representin' as well. xthumbsupx

[StorminASU]

Not sure why the constant disparaging of student support at ASU. Is it because the folks that keep raising the issue have students, like at Furman, that couldn't care less about their team? :o

Yeah, I don't know what's up with that either. We have 10 sections dedicated to students, plus the new endzone seating, plus all the students that pile onto the hill and sit with their parents, etc.

http://mystuffspace.com/graphic/hatorade.gif

You've all had enough, now put it down.

[realgsu]

The student section at the dome holds around 8500. With overflow its a little over 12k.

http://i1113.photobucket.com/albums/k515/GaStMBBfan/324985_10150319490364238_500299237_7704202_252280_ o.jpg