South Carolina sets ticket plan, attendance limit for Garnet & Black spring game
South Carolina football will allow up to 9,000 fans into Williams-Brice Stadium for its annual Garnet & Black spring game, the program announced Thursday.
The spring game is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday, April 24 and will also be streamed online on SEC Network Plus.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, seating will be limited in the lower and club levels to pods of five to allow for social distancing. Facial coverings will be required, and seats will be general admission on a first-come, first-serve basis — available seats will be marked with green stickers.
Tickets will cost $5 for the general public but are free for Gamecock Club members, who can reserve theirs starting Thursday. The general public can buy tickets starting next Monday. All tickets will be mobile-only.
This spring game will mark the first in-person look for fans at new coach Shane Beamer in action on the sidelines.
“Obviously, we got such an amazing fan base here with Carolina athletics that are hungry. So to have Williams-Brice as full as possible, obviously COVID and being smart with that, obviously we want to defer to health officials and what’s best, but the more people we can have in there, the better. It creates energy for our players, it creates energy for our program, it creates energy for this city and our university and fan base,” Beamer said Wednesday. “There’s certainly a lot of excitement about Carolina football right now, which I’m excited about. And the more that we can emphasize that and get guys out there to see our guys perform, and our guys being able to perform in front of people I think is great. And the more the better, if we’re allowed.”
This past fall, USC set an attendance limit of approximately 20,000 fans per game at Williams-Brice Stadium, with the upper levels available for seating too. The announced attendance in the five home games never exceeded 16,500.
Moving into 2021, athletic director Ray Tanner has said the department will be “aggressive” in planning for a return to full capacity for the fall season, citing the rollout of COVID vaccines. Tanner repeated that optimism Thursday in announcing the spring game plans.
“The information that we have received about the pandemic shows a promising trend if we remain vigilant,” Tanner said in a statement. “Following these guidelines for the spring game will help us get to the fall season, where we hope to have a full stadium for Coach Beamer’s first season.”
At the same time, USC has also reaffirmed that it will not increase fan capacities at any of its venues this spring. According to Bloomberg’s COVID Vaccine Tracker, South Carolina has fully vaccinated 13.1% of its population, with 24.1% of residents having received at least one dose.
This story was originally published March 25, 2021 at 12:11 PM.
