In an effort to pick up slack from some badly slumping season-ticket sales, the University of Hawaii will shortly begin offering 50 percent discounts on selected football and Rainbow Wahine volleyball tickets.
The "Go Green, Save Green" campaign will be available online only and in limited periods in August, UH said.
From Aug. 1, UH will sell "mini packs" of tickets for four football games for the price of two and six volleyball matches for the price of three. All six home football games, including the Aug. 29 opener against Southern California, and most home volleyball matches will be available in non-premium seat contribution areas.
In Aloha Stadium, that means a majority of the north end zone, upper areas in the south end zone and top sideline sections. At the Stan Sheriff Center, most upper-level areas will be available.
The promotion will run until Aug. 28.
In addition, UH said it will offer individual football and Rainbow Wahine event tickets at a 50 percent discount for up to eight tickets from Aug. 12 to 28.
For the first time, fans will be able to select exact seats for individual game purchases online and UH will also waive its standard print-at-home fee.
Locations are primarily in the upper end zone at Aloha Stadium and upper baseline at Stan Sheriff Center, UH said.
UH said a total of 10,440 seats will be available for mini pack sale in football and 4,169 in Rainbow Wahine volleyball. Online sales start at 9 a.m. Thursday.
The initiatives come in the wake of slow-moving football season tickets. UH said it had sold 17,374 football season tickets as of Thursday, a figure on pace to be the lowest since the school joined the Western Athletic Conference in 1979. UH sold 20,743 in 2012 and has topped 20,000 for the past six years.
Meanwhile, Rainbow Wahine season ticket sales were 3,489 as of Thursday and are expected to match or come close to the 2012 total of 3,593.
"We’re hoping to recover the shortfall in the number of season tickets compared to last year, but, obviously, we want to sell beyond that," said Ben Jay, UH athletic director.
Jay said he had hoped for better football season ticket sales but said, "we’re not surprised. I think people are taking a wait-and-see attitude with this team given last year. But we think we have a great product to put out there against a tougher schedule."
Jay said, "We’re trying to make it as simple as we can and as affordable as we can." He said the promotions were based, in part, on feedback the department got from fans who were not renewing season tickets.
"We heard from (some) who did not want to buy season tickets but were interested in coming to multiple games, so mini packs seemed like a good idea," Jay said. "They can pick the games they want and get some pretty decent seats."
Season-ticket sales are key to the department’s finances since they averaged approximately 70 percent of total football ticket revenue over the past six years. Last year, UH said it took in $2.7 million in football season-ticket revenue but just $602,378 in individual game sales.
Associate AD John McNamara said the bulk of the seating areas being made available were filled "about 20 percent of the time. The logic here is that if we can sell 60-70 percent of those seats versus having them sit empty, we have the benefit of bigger crowds and a better atmosphere at the game while making them affordable to a larger audience."
McNamara said UH will offer other ticket initiatives after Aug. 28.
