Kansas Wesleyan announced Tuesday that it’ll have limited capacity at events taking place at the Graves Family Sports Complex and Mabee Arena this fall.

The capacity set for the Graves Family Sports Complex is set at 487 (24%), while Mabee Arena will have a capacity of 324 (21%).

“We’re grateful that our great fans can watch high level athletics, and watch the Coyotes,” KWU athletic director Steve Wilson said. “A lot of work has gone into it. Those numbers were arrived by social distancing our seats and ensuring we have the appropriate amount of space between folks.

“It’s almost like a checkered board system, nobody is sitting in front of anyone else. (It was) a lot of hours, but I think worthwhile hours so that we can get folks who want to see our games, especially parents. It’s a big deal to our students as well.”

Ticket counts will be broken into five categories — students, faculty and staff, season pass holders, student-athlete parents and guests and single-game tickets. All admission and game tickets to men’s and women’s soccer matches, football games and volleyball matches will be pre-issued by KWU Athletics staff. No walk-up tickets will be made available on gameday. Each ticket will have a unique code that will be scanned at entry and cannot be duplicated.

There will be a pre-determined number of tickets for student-athletes to invite up to two guests to a game. Priority will be given to senior athletes first for the first game, and then for the following game, it’ll be the junior athletes and the sophomores and freshmen for the third and fourth home games.

“Once it’s scanned you’re in,” Wilson said. “(With) contact tracing it’s important to know where everyone sat, and know where folks were in the stadium. We’re able to know where every ticket was assigned, where every person sat and we’ll have a name with that.

“There’s going to be times where we have a bank of some single-game tickets that we can give out to the community. We may hold those for some parents if we have guests of student-athletes that it’s their only chance of coming to a game. If that’s the only game they’re going to get to, we’re going to do everything we can and leave no stone in turn to make sure those people can see the game.”

Wesleyan will abide by guidelines set forth by the Saline County Health Department which will include mandatory face coverings for all attendees at both facilities. Attendees will also been screened verbally, get their temperature taken and will be issued event-specific wristbands.

KWU is not allowing fans to tailgate prior to home football games. All campus lots near and south of the Graves Family Sports Complex will be monitored.

“It does break some traditions,” Wilson said. “In order to have spectators, you have to sacrifice some things in a climate like this. It’s really tough to tell folks, especially coming to a football game that they can’t do the normal football things.

“We’re going to have some increased security presence making sure that the tailgating is not happening, but that’s all in the interest of public health. Just every time you can limit contact while still enabling folks to watch the game, I think you’re doing the right thing.”

Wilson said the athletic department has made significant investments with the Coyote Sports Network. With football games, it’ll be a four-camera setup, professionally produced and similar to a game that fans can watch on television.

“It’s going to be pretty good,” he said. “It’s in high definition. People who can’t get to the game are still going to be able to watch it, and enjoy the experience.”

Wesleyan will host a volleyball tournament on Sept. 5 and 6, where no fans will be allowed due to the amount of teams playing in the tournament. Fans will be allowed for the men’s and women’s soccer season openers on Sept. 5 against Tabor. The Coyote football team opens its season on Sept. 12 against Friends.