A sold-out Sept. 27 football game caused the NIU Athletics Department to require students to have a ticket to enter Huskie Stadium.

Beginning at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, 6,000 free tickets for the game will be available for students to pick up at the Convocation Center Box Office, said Scott Lowenberg, head of marketing and promotions.

Only one ticket per student is allowed. All that is needed is your NIU OneCard, Lowenberg said. Tickets will be available from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sept. 23, or until 6,000 tickets are given away. The ticket office will be closed Saturday and Sunday.

If any of the 6,000 tickets aren’t picked up by Sept. 23, they will go on sale to the general public Sept. 24 at 8:30 a.m., but still will be available for free for late-arriving students.

Student tickets will be for the east side of Huskie Stadium.

“Basically, this is the same as when we swipe the student’s cards on game day,” Lowenberg said. “But we are just doing it ahead of time now. Each student can pick up one ticket, but they have to be there present with their ID.”

If tickets aren’t used, no one will be admitted into the game to fill the empty seats, said assistant athletics director Stacy Allie.

“It’s just like if you buy a ticket at a concert, so we are saving that seat,” Allie said. “We hope that students that are picking up the tickets have all the intention of coming.”

Neither the north or south end zones are likely to be made available for seating to anyone, Allie said.

“There was a concern with the backside of the burn in the south end zone as it just drops right off and we didn’t want anybody to get hurt,” Allie said.

If all 6,000 student tickets are claimed quickly, Allie said the NIU Athletics Department will consider seating options for the end zones for the Iowa State game.

One option Allie said was that the band could be moved into one of the end zones, although the north end zone bleachers have been deemed unsafe to sit in, Allie said. The band takes up about 500 seats.

“It could be looked into for this game if the athletic department wanted to work with the band on relocating to open up more seating,” Allie said.