What's with this "List" and line process I keep hearing about?

So, we've been getting lots of questions from local media, staff, alumni, etc. about The List system we've implemented for men's basketball games. Some thought we might be waiting in line just to get tickets, while others thought we were really fighting with each other for seats.

Photo of students outside of Gate E before The List was created, circa 2003-2004

Here's a crash course in how the process we've developed works:

• When a student arrives to wait in line, they are added to The List. Along with their own name, they may add up to 3 fellow students to their group.
• As long as at least 1 representative from a group is present at all times, that group's place in line is valid. This allows people to wait in shifts and maybe even go to a class or two.
• The max group size of 4 was chosen to prevent an unfair ratio of students waiting to the number of students represented by a single person. If we allowed 1 person to wait for 10 people, the shifts would be a bit too easy to organize and it would unfairly put people in seats they didn't necessarily "earn". Essentially, if a person wants to wait a number of hours so they can get 3 of their friends in too, that's OK with us, but anything larger than that seems unfair.
• About an hour before the gates open, which is approximately 3 hours before game time, the groups are lined up in the order of their arrival.
• When the gates open, everyone calmly goes down to the student section, where the people facilitating The List allow the groups to choose their seats in the order they arrived. Important distinction here: No one is waiting in line to be assigned a particular seat. We wait in line for the order of our choice.

So, that's the basic gist of it. Before a bunch of us came together and thought up The List system, it was mayhem to get your seats. The doors would open, people would get stuck pushing through, kids would be tripping and tumbling down the concrete stairs, bodies would fly like superman across as many seats as possible.

We've put something together here that ensures the safety of everyone and gives fans their seats pretty fairly, too.

I'll post the official document (more detailed) tomorrow.

Until then, goodnight.

-Menotti