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In an effort to keep up with the times, officials at North Medford and South Medford high schools have decided to offer online ticket sales for football games this fall through a system called EZTicketlive. Previous season ticket holders for reserved and Skybox seats have already received a letter directing access to the online system, with the general public to get their chance at the end of the month as ticket sales ramp up for the season opening on Sept. 2. "We're moving into the 21st century," said North Medford Athletic Director Tim Sam, who has been the driving force behind the change. "We are taking a leap of faith and we're hoping fans take a leap with us. As far as I know, we're the first high school in the state to do this, but I do know there are several others in the country that are doing an online system like this." The system works by going to www.medford.k12.or.us and selecting either North Medford or South Medford under the "Schools" drop-down menu. Once at the appropriate school, a click on "Athletics" provides access to purchase tickets online. The system, however, is not without its hiccups thus far. For one thing, individual ticket sales are not available until after the season ticket window has closed around Aug. 31 (Sept. 7 for South Medford since the Panthers home opener is one week later than North). The biggest issue has involved a glitch in the tickets themselves, with season ticket holders initially being told that the tickets they print up will serve as their actual tickets when, in fact, it's merely a receipt showing purchase of their season tickets. To iron out the issue, school officials have had to go back and manually load each individual game ticket to the purchasers' name and then send an email noting the update has been made and their tickets with section, row and seat numbers are now available to be printed up. "It's not perfect," admitted Sam, "we'll have to iron out some glitches for sure." Still, the hope is fans will appreciate another way to secure their tickets than coming down to the activities office at each school during the week or waiting at the stadium box office on Friday nights. Those options, however, will still be available this season for those not interested in purchasing tickets online. All offices will have access to the system for up-to-the-second views of what reserved seats are available. "We just felt like at some point we needed to do this and so we said let's dive in and see what happens and take our lumps or whatever but we'll live through it and figure it out and make it better from now on," said South Medford Athletic Director Dennis Murphy. "When you really get it figured out, it will be better and more convenient for everyone and that's really what we want." Ticket prices will include a $1 system fee to help recover the cost of using the online system, but Sam said the district is planning on offering coupons or "dollars off" deals on the tickets to help fans recover this fee. The only time the $1 fee is not in place is for those purchasing general admission tickets at the stadium on game day. "It doesn't quite cover the cost but it's something we need to do," said Sam. Ticket prices range from $7 for general admission ($6 at the stadium on game day) to $9 for reserved seats and $16 for Skybox seats. The student ticket price is $4 and children age 5 and under are admitted free of charge. Student tickets currently are not available online and can only be purchased at the school or stadium. Also available for sale online this season from each school will be preferred parking passes for the first four rows of the large parking lot adjacent to the big tree and gymnasium entrance. Season passes for the approximately 70 spots are available at $4 per game ($20 total), or individual game passes can be purchased for $5 each. The rest of the large lot remains free and open to the public on a space-available basis. Those who may be thinking about circumventing the system by printing up extra ticket copies will have to think again since each ticket comes with a bar code and ticket checkers will be issued bar code scanners for the first time this season. That means only the first user of a ticket with a certain bar code will be admitted and no others with that same code thereafter will be allowed entry. If all goes well, Sam said there's a chance the district could use the same online ticket system for the upcoming seasons in boys and girls basketball. Reach reporter Kris Henry at 541-776-4488, [email protected], www.facebook.com/krishenryMT or twitter.com/Kris_Henry