Students must claim Backyard Brawl tickets at Pete by Friday

Students with football season tickets now have until Friday to claim their tickets to the… Students with football season tickets now have until Friday to go to the Petersen Events Center ticket office to claim their tickets to the Backyard Brawl Nov. 26.

Justin Acierno, director of ticket marketing at Pitt, said he extended the deadline after hundreds of students joined a Facebook group saying they were confused by the ticket claim process.

When football student season ticket holders received their tickets in the mail this summer, they noticed something strange about the sixth and final ticket.

The ticket for the West Virginia game is a “false ticket” and the instructions told students to claim their tickets either online or at the Petersen Events Center ticket office.

That the ticket says “or” is the reason for the confusion, Acierno said.

“That’s where the ambiguity is coming from,” he said. “I was working under the impression from a men’s basketball standpoint where they automatically come [to the Pete]. I was thinking on a different level than students were.”

To claim their tickets, students must go to the ticket office at the Pete, regardless of whether they claimed their ticket online.

An event on Facebook brought the issue to many students’ attention over the past week. The “WVU Ticket Claim” event gained 825 attendees by Monday morning—with many students commenting saying they had no idea that they had to go to the Pete.

The creator of the event, Hyla Wallis, said she heard about the correct process by word of mouth.

“I made the Facebook group in order to save people some grief,” Wallis said.

The ticket says that the deadline was Nov. 1, but Acierno said that students can still claim their ticket at the Pete. He wants all students who are attending the game to claim their tickets by this Friday. Tickets can even be claimed while waiting in line for basketball games.

He said the reason for the new process is because student season tickets sold out this year.

“We had a huge interest on a single game basis, too.” Acierno said.

By having students claim their tickets, Acierno can know just how many season ticket holders plan on attending the game—which falls over Thanksgiving break on Black Friday.

That way, he said, Pitt will probably be able to sell some single game tickets to students “depending on how many season-ticket holders say they’re coming to the game.”

He said students shouldn’t worry too much if they have ticketing problems.

“We will try to work with people as much as we can,” he said. “We aren’t going to penalize anybody.”