It seems the ushers at Allen Fieldhouse are being ushered out.

The folks who take tickets and usher Kansas University basketball fans to their seats might be replaced. At the very least they’ll need to reapply for the jobs, if they want a chance to keep them.

Manpower, the company that currently manages the ushers, is getting out of the business and the KU Athletic Corp. has hired a new firm that will soon start advertising for people to fill the usher positions.

Apparently not all the ushers have been informed of the changes, though some said privately they had received an e-mail from Manpower advising changes were in the works.

“My job is to seat people and be polite,” usher John Towner said. “That’s why we’re all there. All I know is what Manpower tells me, and all they tell us is when we usher.”

He told the Journal-World he hadn’t been told anything about the changes.

He wasn’t the only one in the dark.

Fred Plank, of Baldwin, has been a volunteer usher for 46 years.

“I haven’t been notified. Nobody has said anything to me,” Plank said. “So I really have no idea what’s going on.”

John Towner, an usher at Kansas University sporting events, watches the west entrance into Allen Fieldhouse during pre-game warmups. Manpower, the company that currently manages the ushers, is getting out of the business, and the KU Athletic Corp. has hired Kansas City, Mo.-based Crowd Systems to staff KU basketball games. Towner ushered KU's game against Washburn University on Sunday.

Manpower’s task of providing about 80 workers per basketball game and whatever numbers are needed for football and other KU sporting events will end after the Nov. 27 women’s basketball match-up of the Jayhawks and the University of Missouri-Kansas City Kangaroos.

Manpower, which has been staffing KU athletic events for 27 years, won’t do it anymore because the company is dissolving its event management division, said KU athletic department spokesman Jim Marchiony.

“Manpower had been talking with us since the start of the football season about no longer staffing events,” Marchiony said. “So, it’s been several weeks since they made the firm decision to go this route.”

Local Manpower officials declined comment on the matter. Marchiony said Manpower officials offered no explanation for their decision to eliminate the event management service.

After Nov. 27, Kansas City, Mo.-based Crowd Systems will handle staffing for KU basketball games, both men’s and women’s.

Crowd Systems has been in business since 1975 and specializes in event staffing, said Jane Kincaid, the company’s president.

She said Crowd Systems handled staffing for events at Kemper Arena and Bartle Hall, both in Kansas City, Mo.

6News video: Current KU ushers may be on the way out

The company will begin advertising the usher jobs soon. Kincaid said she wouldn’t be against hiring people who currently provide ushering and ticket-taking services at the fieldhouse.

“I would never try to steal someone else’s employees, but I would consider hiring them,” Kincaid said.