The Covid-19 pandemic changed many aspects of high school athletics in 2020. Attendance limits, a ban on post-game handshakes, masks and entire seasons being canceled were perhaps the most obvious results. 

Even with all these deviations from the norm, the most evident remnant of last season is the transition from paper to electronic ticketing. The push for centralization and logistical streamlining would lead Athletics Director Mr. Rick Streiff and the athletics department to switch to an all-electronic ticketing system before the 2020 sports season. “We had been talking about it for two years,” Streiff said. “We finally got kicked to the curb and we had to do it.” 

With the dawn of contactless technology that was prompted by the pandemic, Streiff said the school had no other option. This year will look different than last year, however. The fall season marks the introduction of Eventlink, an online ticketing service that centralizes scheduling information, updates and perhaps most importantly, ticket distribution.

Convenience was one factor that played a big role in the decision to use Eventlink. “It’s a cleaner system,” Streiff said. If a game gets moved to a different location, sending out that information and rolling over the tickets to the new location can all be done automatically, rather than manually, as was the case in years past. 

Streiff said, given the fact that this is a new system for the athletics program and fans alike, there will be bumps along the way. “Once we get going, it will get easier,” Streiff said. As more people begin utilizing the Eventlink mobile app, the difficulties will subside, he said.  

Students, parents and fans will all use the Eventlink mobile app to purchase tickets for home athletic events. For students wishing to attend home games, a season pass will be required. To set up the season pass, students will need to visit gocathedral.com/eventlink to first create their account using their student email address. Once the account has been created, the season pass will be added to it via the mobile app. Streiff said, “Getting the app set up (on a mobile device) makes loading the pass on the account much easier.” 

Given that each school handles ticketing for their respective events, the season pass is good only for the school’s home games. For away games, ticket links will still be needed. These links can be found at gocathedral.com/athletics. Once there, navigating to an individual team’s page will display away tickets available for purchase. All tickets to home games will be available through Eventlink. 

The advantages of using Eventlink are numerous: Tickets can be purchased well in advance, everything is more convenient and organized and fees are lower, meaning that fans will not be spending as much money on tickets. Compared to the previous ticketing system, which could be fragmented and complicated for fans at times, Eventlink is streamlined and much cleaner.

To start supporting the school’s teams at home events throughout the year, fans should go to the app store or Google Play Store to download the Eventlink mobile app and create an account.