As new tent rules The ticket pull policy, introduced last Monday, has not only left some students frustrated and forced to prepare for the future, but also worried about the community that already exists.

Despite the sweltering heat, hardcore ticket-pickers began camping last Saturday, August 17, two weeks before the opening football game between Texas A&M and Notre Dame. Biology major Noah Franklin was the first to arrive, beginning setup at 3 p.m., followed shortly after by senior industrial engineering major Jimmy Morefield.

“I planned this a month before the actual action and I thought, ‘You know what, I’ll start the Saturday before,'” Franklin said. “I didn’t realize that other people were playing coward just like I was. If I had seen someone else’s tent out here, I would have gone home – rushed home. I would have skipped work to do it.”

And that’s exactly what Morefield did. When he drove past Kyle Field and saw Franklin pulling his tent out of his bag, he went back to his apartment and packed everything up.

They began camping for days—the “tent city” soon grew. But after days of sleeping less than a foot from the ticket booths, the campers were met the following Monday by Student Affairs, who told them to clear the fire access and informed them of new rulesTents must be freestanding, pools and cooking equipment are no longer permitted and, most seriously, camping must not begin until 6am on the Sunday before the ticket draw.

Campers were informed that the rules wouldn’t apply to this first game, so they stuck it out. A few students opened a “little party place” and set up TVs, fans, grass, the video game Guitar Hero and drums in the tents, as well as dehumidifiers and an inflatable sofa that was compared to the iconic “Friends” sofa.

Hailey Spencer, class of 2024 – and resident of the tent with lawn grass and Guitar Hero – is not new and certainly hasn’t broken this tradition.

“I just come here for the vibe,” Spencer said. “I like still feeling the Aggie spirit even though I’m a graduate. We all have a big-ticket group with an Excel spreadsheet, so I just help out whenever I can.”

As a nurse on the night shift, she steps in at her party when others have classes or need to shower.

“We all make trades,” Spencer said. “We say, ‘Okay, I was out here and I need to take a shower.'”

Although some go home to freshen up, others, like Franklin, take advantage of the university facilities and visit the Student Recreation Center.

“I’ve been sweating for the last 12 hours,” Franklin said. “What can I do to clean myself up and not be the grumpy guy in class? Some people like me and one of my other buddies go to the recreation center and shower there.”

For campers like Franklin, participating in the ticket pull means giving it everything they have. He carries a duffel bag full of clothes and a makeup bag, is always prepared and quotes Farmers Insurance: “We know a thing or two because we’ve seen a thing or two.”

Seeing a thing or two also applies to the lore behind decades of tradition, from the “list eater” to hot tubs. The new policy banning hot tubs and pools isn’t a coincidence—it’s because it’s already happened.

“I think it was something like a 150-gallon inflatable hot tub,” Morefield said. “They brought a really big cooler in a truck and used 50-gallon buckets to pump all the water from the truck into the hot tub.”

And the “list eater”? That’s right. That happened in 2004 when two people “jumped in front” – back when students still kept an eye on the line with a paper list.

“From what I understand, people looked outside and saw her standing in line and they asked, ‘Doesn’t she know how the list works?'” Morefield said. “The list keeper for that window went to talk to her and she took the list for that window, crumpled it up and put it in her mouth. There’s some debate about whether she spit it out or swallowed it afterward.”

According to a Article on “Good Bull Hunting”she ate it.

“After that, they lost a whole list for the window, so probably all the information,” Morefield said. “People lost faith in the system and after that, it just disappeared.”

Today, competition for spots has become even tougher. The weekend before tickets went on sale, nightlife in the tent city was in full swing. Most campers were playing spikeball and poker and crowded around the TVs, eager for Monday morning.

“Tickets are given out on a first-come, first-served basis,” Franklin said. “We’re not just doing this to win the ticket drawing. We’re here because we want our tickets, and if people want to come and join in, there’s more than enough room in the tent city. It’s a great place to build community. It’s a great way to meet friends. We all sit together and have fun.”

Franklin maintains another tradition: He and a group of friends gather around the Reveille statue and sing the war hymn at midnight in front of the ticket sales. On the night before August 26, other campers sang along from their tents.

Although campers come together to have fun, they are technically all competing for tickets. That competitiveness was on display Monday morning during the “cram” – a five-hour-long scramble at the ticket counters. At 5 a.m., campers began breaking down their tents and hustling each other toward their final destination. Some, like animal science student Jaxson Zimmerman, wish the university had prepared better.

“Without the student body, football games would be very, very, very different,” Zimmerman said. “You can’t say you have the best student body in the country without doing your best to accommodate that.”

Zimmerman and his group began camping last Monday night, a week before their grading tickets were drawn. He said he thought the recent rule change was one of the worst decisions the administration has ever made. Instead, Zimmerman said, they should incorporate technology into the mix.

“There’s no reason why someone who starts camping three days after me should just by luck get better tickets than me,” Zimmerman said. “If they really wanted to be fair, they would do it right … (That) we can’t implement (technology) here is kind of beyond me.”

“If they don’t believe – especially in the Texas game – that nothing can go wrong and someone gets run over or gets in a fight because that would cause problems, then they’re crazy,” Zimmerman continued.

The current system ensures fairness, Zimmerman said. The lengthy, labor-intensive process is “part of it,” and while it is stressful, students have found ways to adapt through methods like shift work.

“If it means something to you, you will follow through and take all the necessary steps to be able to pitch the tent and ensure effective communication and coordination of all kinds,” Zimmerman said.

Morefield shared this view, saying the new Sunday policy could encourage students to “wait in line until a line comes in.”

“I don’t know if the university really took that into account,” Morefield said.

Although die-hard campers do not want the – sometimes – long tradition to be changed, they cooperate with the university’s wishes and wait eagerly to see how the season unfolds.

“It just shows how crazy we are,” Franklin said. “We love this and it’s a tradition we don’t want to end. I understand that the university has to change the rules, but they also don’t want it to end because they love seeing us here.”

The recent ticket pull camps have created a community within a community that many do not fear will die out despite the current regulations.

“There’s nobody else in the United States or the world that does it like Texas A&M does it, and nobody will ever understand it,” Zimmerman said. “It’s completely unique, and as cliché as it sounds, ‘From the outside looking in, you can’t understand it. From the inside looking in, you can’t explain it.’ That perfectly sums up what this is about. You may not understand it, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to respect it.”