Are you interested in seeing a high school sporting event in southwest Iowa this year? Better prepare in advance \u2014 or have a credit card handy.<\/p>\n
The Western Iowa Conference, following the lead of the Hawkeye Ten Conference, will not take cash at the door, KMA reports<\/a>. Both conferences are selling their tickets through Bound (formerly Varsity Bound), the website that also keeps statistics and postseason brackets. As far as I can tell, you have to navigate to the conference’s homepage there, then click “tickets,” then look for the game you want. This is the WIC’s page.<\/a>\u00a0Bound is a difficult and occasionally slow website to navigate, and methods for boys’ and girls’ sports may be different. Bound charges a fee for boys’ games.<\/p>\n The ticket issue applies to all sports. Audubon Athletic Director Sean Birks told KMA<\/a>, \u201cThe hope is everybody either buys tickets ahead of time, scans their card at the door or has a punch card. That will help things be smoother. There will not be cash for walk-up sales.” That KMA article also says ticket prices are going up to $7 for football.<\/p>\n What happened to “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private”?<\/p>\n The options of a punch card or credit card mitigates the issue for those who don’t bring\/have smart phones, at least. Maybe I’m just a stick in the mud, but going cashless in situations like this is annoying. It also rules out giving your kid(s) the cash to get in separately.<\/p>\n In a Facebook post<\/a>, North Tama said that it is also switching to Bound for tickets. Cash will<\/em> be accepted at North Tama, but “some schools may only accept credit\/debit cards at the gate,” the post says. All sports will be $6 except for volleyball at $5.<\/p>\n The issue is worse in college sports, where large schools have ditched any option except<\/em> a smart phone. Iowa State says printed tickets and screenshots will not be allowed.<\/a>\u00a0If multiple tickets are under the same name, each person must have their own<\/em> ISU ticket account, and tickets must be transferred. This pretty much destroys the idea of going there and holding up tickets to sell or fingers to buy tickets, which I suppose is an intended consequence. There won’t be a ticket stub memento. And\u00a0of course, there will be perfectly working, full-bars data access and Wi-Fi at the stadium on game day, right? Right?<\/p>\n The ticket guide page at hawkeyesports.com<\/a> says “all tickets must be presented on your mobile device.” Commenters on MGoBlog<\/a> say this is the last year Michigan will print football tickets at all, and they’ve only been available to season ticket holders. Last year, screenshots of tickets were not accepted at Texas games<\/a>.<\/p>\n If Taylor Swift fans can take on Ticketmaster<\/a>, who do we need to take on college football’s ticketing scheme? (Oh, right, no one’s in charge of college football. I volunteer.)<\/p>\n UPDATE: Iowa State will not take cash anywhere<\/em> at athletic events, according to a post at Cyclone Fanatic<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Are you interested in seeing a high school sporting event in southwest Iowa this year? Better prepare in advance \u2014 or have a credit card handy. The Western Iowa Conference, following the lead of the Hawkeye Ten Conference, will not … Continue reading