LAWRENCE, Kan. – ‘Late Night in the Phog’ is a hugely popular event. But last Friday’s event, which kicked off the Jayhawks’ much anticipated basketball season, had problems. The university estimated that between 3,000-5,000 people were turned away from the event.
Some of those people drove long distances, and waited in line for hours. Others complained about being shoved around. FOX 4 was there to capture some of the frenzy. Kansas’ associate athletics director tells FOX that the university hasn’t had problems like this, for ‘Late Night in the Phog’ events in previous years.
Many speculated that there’s so much hype about this year’s team, that way more excited fans showed up this year. But the university says that’s no excuse.
The Athletics Department, the Office of Public Safety and Lawrence city officials will discuss how to keep everything fun, but safe for the future events.
“We will be looking at every facet of the event from communication to security to, even as far as whether it should remain a general admission ticketed event,” Jim Marchiony, KU’s Associate Athletics Director, said.
“I think they could have done a much better job communicating to the crowd. There didn’t seem to be a lot of organization as for as the lines went,” KU fan and alum Erin Davis said.