In humid rainy afternoons or cold windy nights, students can bee seen in lawn chairs and tents waiting to pull tickets for the weekend’s home game.
Students are willing to brave the elements, lose sleep and wait for hours in order to pull first-choice football tickets.
Students will arrive outside ticket pull windows anywhere from early evening the day before pull to a few hours before sunrise.
Karson Moerbe, supply chain management senior, said she started camping out for ticket pull her sophomore year. At the time, she lived with her older sister who was deeply invested in Aggie football and encouraged Moerbe to wake up early and wait for the ticket pull windows to open.
“Those are some of the most fun memories that I have of college,” Moerbe said. “It’s the reason that I still camp out. All my friends think it’s ridiculous, and everyone tells me that based off of the algorithm, it doesn’t really matter when you show up. But I love going, even if it’s freezing cold or raining.”
Moerbe said she has camped out for roughly 20 football games so far and plans to continue doing so, because she would be upset with herself if she gave up on it. For the Alabama game, she brought her younger brother, Garrett Moerbe, Blinn Team sophomore, with her and Karson said she hopes to now make it a family ritual.
“I feel like it’s an A&M tradition, without being an A&M tradition,” Moerbe said. “At this point, I have so many fond memories associated with it. I graduate in December, so this is my last football season. I want to take advantage of it. I want it to continue.”
Seeing her assigned section in Kyle Field for game day is what makes camping out worth it, according to Moerbe. Despite the excitement students camping have to finally pull tickets when the windows open, Moerbe said others are never unkind or pushy when the final lines form.
“All of these students that come and camp out and sit there for hours on end, and it’s a sense of camaraderie,” Moerbe said. “To me, it shows that the Aggie family is a real thing, and we really care about our school.”
Brian Hsu, industrial and systems engineering senior, said he has camped out for tickets to two games. For the Alabama game, Hsu and his roommates brought camping gear complete with a tent and a raft. Hsu said he connected to the campus wifi to complete homework, conversed with friends and slept for five hours.
“I was pumping up a raft in front of the other people camping out in the middle of the night,” Hsu said. “Everyone was looking at me kind of weird. I had country music playing, and I was pumping to the tune. I showed up on a lot of people’s snapchat stories.”
Rhyan Weirich, civil engineering sophomore, camped out for this year’s Alabama game, deciding last minute to arrive at midnight. Weirich said he witnessed other students set up campfires complete with hotdogs and marshmallows. Weirich said he would do the same thing again for future games if he thought it was necessary to obtain desirable tickets.
“Fifteen minutes before, everyone started getting in line,” Weirich said. “But, it was never really pushy. I just think it’s a really cool experience. I knew the Alabama tickets in particular were going to be pulled pretty quickly, so I decided that if I wanted to get a good spot, camping out would be my best opportunity.”
Whatever an individual’s scope of involvement in camping out, Hsu said he would encourage every student to participate to some extent during their time in Aggieland.
“If anyone hasn’t done it, it’s quite an experience,” Hsu said. “If you do it with friends, it’s more fun. Bring a football, throw it around. I don’t know how many times a student should do it, because it’s tiring if you have class the next day. But at least do it once.”