So your son or daughter made A-row, huh?

Here's all the information that your rookie probably either doesn't know or is too busy to tell you.

Gray Day: If you're from around here or are in town Friday night and want a front row seat for the halftime show music, we do music checks on the Friday before game day on the practice field next to Morrill and Lincoln towers (around 4:30pm during the school year. If you can't make it by then, we typically do a full run-through of the show during the last 15 minutes of rehearsal.)  This is practice, however, so don't expect more than a wave from your son/daughter, as they will be busy.  Also, unless you want the "crazy band parent" label, I wouldn't suggest coming by practice extremely often.

Skull Sessions:  To score the best seats, get there as the doors open 2 hours before the skull session starts (4 hours before kickoff)  Suggestion: get to know other A-row parents, and trade off on days to save each other seats. A-row sits in the front row on the left side of the band. Gate 7A is perfect to be right in front of us.

Row Lunch:  Every game, someone's parents will volunteer to host the row for lunch on game day.  Lunch is typically 2 hours after our original call time (e.g. for noon games, band reports at 6:30am, we get out for lunch between 8:30-9am.) and lasts about 30-45 minutes. The signups for this occurs at the beginning of the season, and seniority determines what games people will get.  We have two places for lunch: one is under an overhang on the northwest side of the RPAC (OSU's recreational facility, located right next to the stadium) and the other is the park catty-corner to University Hall on campus. It is up to the parents which place is easiest; we're semi-flexible, and we've gone to other places before.  We prefer to stick as close to the stadium as possible since Trumpet Cheers (usually a lot of a-row) has to leave early to go have practice before we block up to march to the skull session.

Row Dinner: Every Friday night before game day, the row gets together for dinner hosted by a member's parents or relatives.  Again, signups are at the beginning of the season and seniority determines what games people get.  If you're from out of town, arrangements can be made to have dinner at the A-row house or some other location in Columbus (you could always just take us out to dinner somewhere too.)

Parent Tickets: Every year the band is offered tickets to some games (Typically, 2 seats for two games)  We usually don't know which games they will be until a few weeks beforehand. For 2009 we can buy 2 tickets to New Mexico State and Illinois. The seats are usually right behind the band in south stands. Checks are made out to "The Ohio State University" @$67 per ticket.

Bowl Games: The band parents are offered tickets and a bowl package based on seniority of your son or daughter.  From my experience, a lot of parents do not go and tickets are not usually a problem to come by, even for rookies.  The package offered is usually quite expensive.  My parents have opted to buy the tickets online and plan their own trip so that they can have a rental car and such, but the package is convenient in that it is already set up for you. The package always has seats located near the band in the stadium.  For closer games, a package without air fare is an option for those who wish to drive.