Comfortable seating is key for husker football games.

But a big change for chairback seats in Memorial Stadium brought big problems Saturday.

As husker fans streamed through the gates of memorial stadium for the season's first football game, a pre-game highlight was a comfy new chair.

"They look much better, they're softer they got a nice back. I think it's much improvement over what they had last year," said Rosemarie Mares, clenching her chair in hand.

The University bought 18,000 new chairback seats for fans to rent this year for $5 a piece. They boast thicker cushions and fiber glass backs.
But, with the new chairs, comes a new rule - leave your personal chairbacks at home. That doesn't sit well with some fans.

Phil Patterson of Omaha said, "The whole idea stinks". He's been coming to Husker football games for 40 years and always brought his own chairback seat. He said having to rent one means he has to come to the stadium earlier to ensure he gets a chair.

Others say they don't mind because they always rent the extra piece of comfort.

"Oh that doesn't bother me. You know so much changes and if you don't just accept it, you get mad and then that's not good either," said Sharon Hecht of Hastings. Although she does have mixed feelings on the design of the new chair. "I like the fact that they're sturdy and that people can't push up against you but they don't fold up and that makes them harder to carry."

Chip Dodge thinks the new chair policy is a good idea.

" I like the idea that all the seat backs will be the same and that the new chairs have a hard back on them too," he said.

The hard backs became hard to get though, just before game time Saturday. Volunteers at a number of entrances, ran out of chairs to sell. The volunteers were instead, holding chairs for season ticket holders who paid in advance.

Tracey Pickett was among the fans turned away because she didn't have a "Grab & Go" voucher. She said volunteers told her the voucher can only be purchased by season ticket holders, which she is, but says she wasn't made aware of the option to pay for the chairs in advance.

"I was excited about trying the new seats and obviously we won't get that opportunity," said Pickett.

After a while, even those people with the vouchers were left standing with no chair to sit on.

Volunteers in charge of renting out the chairs said they couldn't answer questions about the problem but noted that they never had a shortage last year and that the first few games are a bit of a trial period as the university figures out the demand for the rented chairs.

"The process is flawed a little bit. They need to have a way to get the grab & go tickets and scan them. That way they'd know how many they have left and how many are gone and how many they still need to get seats for," said Dave Burk, another fan angry over the inconvenience.