The Golden Band from Tiger Land’s pregame festivities are an important tradition at LSU football games — traditions some students have missed this season while waiting in line to enter Tiger Stadium.Instead of watching the band, students found themselves stuck in a hot and crowded ticket line during pregrame festivities and even through part of the first quarter during the first two home games this season. Eddie Nunez, associate athletic director for operations and project development, said the problem has been worse this season than in past seasons because students have been arriving later to get in line.”If you stand and watch the student gate, you have that initial group of students that are all there early,” Nunez said. “They come once the gates open. The situation that we’re having is that not all of them come when the gates open.”The student gates are open 15 minutes before any other gate in the stadium, giving the students two hours and 45 minutes to get in the stadium before kickoff.The problem this season is the students aren’t taking advantage of that time, Nunez said.”I know they’re outside wanting to enjoy themselves and trying to take in as much of the tailgating opportunity as possible,” Nunez said. “What ends up occurring is that they all come basically right at the last minute.”Nunez said the Athletic Department is going to try new ways to get the lines moving faster by adding more lines and bag checkers. He said they have been working with Student Government to get the word out to come to the games early.Melissa Hart, SG director of athletics, said Student Government has been using word of mouth to get students to come earlier. Plans are in place to use Facebook and Twitter to reach a bigger audience if the problem continues.”If students want to see pregame, which is 15 minutes before kickoff, then they need to be there about an hour before,” Hart said. “They should just enjoy their time with the band playing music and watching the team warm up.”Hart said students should also know what items can’t be brought in the stadium before they get in line.She said backpacks, umbrellas, purses larger than a sheet of paper, ice chests, food and drinks are all prohibited,”Someone in front of me brought their umbrella to the ULL game,” Hart said. “They made them throw it away. That took a while because they were trying to fight about it. If students just don’t argue with the officials and listen to them, it would make the line go smoother.”Hart said it would also help if students didn’t bring bags, but instead just brought their Tiger Card, ticket and money.Benjamin Hartman, civil engineering sophomore, said the bag check line was huge and not moving at all when he stood in line for both games.”I didn’t have my bag checked, so I went right through,” Hartman said. “I was in there in maybe 15 seconds.”Brannin Petit, general business freshman said she went through the bag check line for the Louisiana-Lafayette game and waited about 30 minutes in line.”The other line was moving pretty fast compared to the bag check line,” Petit said.Nunez said the last thing the Athletic Department wants is for students to be stuck outside during a game.”We definitely would love to get them in there before the game starts,” Nunez said. “We feel that the atmosphere is much better when they get inside early. They provide such an impact on our players.”- – – -Contact Katherine Terrell at [email protected]