A surge in student attendance at Tech football games this season led to overcrowding issues at the first home game against Georgia State University. Organizational mishaps and crowd mismanagement caused general dissatisfaction for some students and posed serious safety concerns for others. In response to this, the Georgia Tech Athletics Association (GTAA) and Student Government Association (SGA) are already enacting changes to safely accommodate the growth in support for the Institute’s football program.
The density of the student section at the Aug. 31 game was reminiscent of the last home game against u[sic]GA. The lower portions of sections 114-120 were over their capacity, preventing students assigned there from taking their seats. Due to this, many were barred from entering or reentering the student section.
Mike Flynn, Associate Athletics Director of Communications and Public Relations, shared a statement with the Technique regarding the overcrowding issues on behalf of GTAA, and he pointed out just how tremendous the increase in student attendance has been.
“For the first time in recent memory, our full allotment of football season tickets for students is sold out. Students bought more than 6,000 season tickets, about a 30% increase (~1,300 season tickets) over last year. Additionally, our entire allotment of nearly 1,000 complimentary single-game student tickets have been claimed, and we have opened up additional seating to accommodate more students, for both home games this season,” Flynn said.
Matt Manno, fifth-year IE, experienced the effects of this surge in attendees during the Jackets’ home opener against GSU. His biggest complaint came with what he observed to be Tech’s event staff BEST Security’s mishandling of students, saying that they seemed over-focused on the section.
“No one had it figured out. Seeing students trying to get back into their sections, seats that they paid for, because they left to go get water was frustrating. These kids just want to watch the game. I missed the entire second quarter trying to get back to my seats. I actually watched the end of the quarter from the nosebleeds, out of my section, because there was no security in sight. Security guards were being aggressive; cops were being aggressive,” said Manno.
Manno sits in a student group-affiliated block. Students in these blocks experienced the most severe effects of the overcrowding due to a combination of more students attending the game and organizational changes that decreased restrictions on each group’s seating arrangements.
Prior to this year, GTAA determined the specific location of each group’s block down to the range of rows and seats they could occupy within a section. Now, student groups are only assigned a section number and restricted to the lower or upper halves, leaving them to either mix with each other or partition the section themselves. While this change does solve the issue of minimizing unfilled seats within each block, it removes BEST security’s authority to regulate seating within the section.
“In previous years, Tech has provided block leaders with specific sections and rows that the block members were to sit in at games,” said Will Barnes, third-year CS and a fraternity block leader. “Then they decided, without input or warning from me or other block leaders, as far as I know, to completely move away from this system. The new system has been completely disorganized, giving us wristbands that denoted three different sections we could sit in, assuming [the fraternities] could figure out [seating arrangements] on their own. … While SGA attempted to assign rows to the blocks, it was not perfect and led to an unorganized scramble for space, and our group ended up fragmented.”
SGA and GTAA have received this feedback, and they are working to prioritize student safety as support grows for Tech football.
Kayla Kirnon, fourth-year CS and SGA Vice President of Student Life, and Carson Veal, third-year ISyE and SGA Athletics Committee Chair, spoke with the Technique about intercepting this feedback and working with GTAA to develop sustainable solutions, and they gave some insight on the reasoning for this year’s blocking changes.
In discussing the block changes, Kirnon and Veal explained that they and GTAA shifted the SWARM block backwards and removed row specifications for student groups because the spike in ticket sales left them unsure of how many students would actually attend the game.
“We didn’t know exactly how many people we were going to have in the student section, and we didn’t know the numbers for sure for each of the different fraternity’s blocks, so we weren’t sure how to allocate,” said Veal.
Kirnon said, “They made use of the scan rates from previous years. Like if a block has 100 tickets sold, but only three people are showing up for that block every single game, then the scan rate for that block is very low. So … athletics didn’t necessarily want to give rows initially because they were allocating a lot of rows to [organizations] and then those [organizations] were possibly not showing up. I’m not sure 100% how that will or will not affect the rows, but I do think they’re looking at it.”
“We talked to Athletics and made sure they knew that the students’ safety at the games and the way they’re treated by the security is very important. They were able to reassure us and tell us in detail, you know, all of the things they went through with the security, specifically talking to the person that’s in charge of the company, making sure they have more staff at the games, making sure the staff were retrained [and] just doing a lot of things to make sure that what happened at the first game doesn’t happen again,” said Kirnon.
These conversations proved to be effective, and last week, GTAA and SGA sent an email to all season ticket holders explaining what actions they were taking to better the student experience. It offered a solution that directly addressed student concerns with a multi-phase improvement plan whose first phase was already enacted at the game at VMI.
“Highlights of Phase 1 of the process, which was implemented ahead of last Saturday’s game versus VMI, included: an updated process and enhanced communication for wristband distribution, meeting with leadership of [Best Security] to address improper behavior towards fans (particularly [Tech] students) and the restoration of the Reck Club seating block in the north end zone. Phase 2 of the process, which will begin with our next home game versus Duke on Oct. 5, features the restoration of the Swarm block in the north end zone to mirror the sections previously allocated,” Flynn said.
Although the experience for students was much smoother against VMI, there are still more engaging home games to come. During the second phase of the plan, Bobby Dodd will host games against more popular teams such as Duke, University of Miami, and North Carolina State, whose games could attract a much larger crowd.
When asked about his confidence in the plan’s effectiveness in the future, Kirnon responded, “rather than focusing on … what the outcome will be, I’m very confident in the work that’s being done. I think that [it] will eventually lead to a very safe environment at the games. And I definitely think that the people who are leading this discussion. [Athletics Director] J. Batt, Dean Stein and everyone on the Student Life side is very focused on making sure that the student experience at the games is very good.”
With these more lively games, the true effectiveness of SGA and the Athletics Departments’ plan will be tested. Students like Barnes still have reservations about the crowd management plan.
“While we were assigned specific rows for the VMI game, it did not have the attendance, time slot or stakes that the GSU game did. And the system will change once again for the Duke game, so who knows what is next for the organization blocks because Tech certainly has not told us,” Barnes said.
Students have recognized that the Institute has a responsibility to ensure that they are not being mistreated at football games. This issue is further representative of Tech’s rapid growth and issues that arise when its infrastructure cannot accommodate it. However, having a larger and denser student section than in previous years is not an entirely problematic situation. The Institute seems optimistic about how this growth will positively impact Tech when it is addressed properly.
“Our entire athletics department, especially our football student-athletes and staff, are very thankful for the Tech student body helping make Bobby Dodd Stadium one of the best environments in all of college football,” Flynn said. “The support at these first two home games has been incredible and has played a huge role in two wins.”