Rival schools hit over game tickets

Some 300 students with the tickets were denied entrance into the Jamsil Indoor Stadium for the basketball match between Korea University and Yonsei University on Sept. 18. / Yonhap

By Lee Kyung-min

Organizers of the Korea-Yonsei Festival, an annual sports event held from Sept. 18-19 between the two universities, have been criticized over alleged failure to control the number of entrance tickets.

A student body from Korea University (KU) said Sunday that 300 students who had tickets were denied entrance into the Jamsil Indoor Stadium, with a capacity of some 11,000 seats, for the basketball match on Sept. 18.

The students who were denied entrance blamed the organizers for wrongly estimating the number of visitors.

“We were so frustrated that we were denied entrance even with tickets in our hands, which we won hard through a random draw,” a Korea University student was quoted as saying.

“Tickets should not have been given to us in the first place if we were to be left outside.”

The student body said that the university carelessly issued the tickets far more, without considering the popularity of the basketball match this year.

According to the student body, of the 3,800 tickets assigned to the university, 2,600 were given to the students, and the remaining 1,200 were given to the university to give out to alumni or faculty members as invitations.

Traditionally, the two universities have issued at least 500 more tickets for each, citing that not all people invited will actually come see the match.

Baseball has been one of the most popular sports games between the two universities along with ice hockey.

In particular, this year’s ticket demand among KU students spiked following their huge victory last year, with many of them wanting to see in person that they beat Yonsei again in basketball, in which Korea University students have outperformed Yonsei counterparts for years.

Taking all such circumstances into account, the student body gave out tickets through a computerized random draw, to guarantee fairness, but their effort was proven in vain due to the university, they claimed.

Korea University was unavailable for comment.

Meanwhile, the popular event was not free from ticket scalpers. The student body said they identified some of the scammers who sold tickets for ice hockey and basketball at prices of up to 70,000 won.

Some students attempted to sell the tickets through their respective university community websites, they added.