Score tickets without breaking the bank

Everyone has that friend who scores the best tickets to seemingly everything, brags about it… Everyone has that friend who scores the best tickets to seemingly everything, brags about it frequently and occasionally lets you tag along. Well, I am one of those friends.

I know – your jealousy is building up because you are now thinking about your friend who just scored second row seats to the Penguins-Flyers playoff game. But with a few pointers you can join in on the fun of attending once-in-a-lifetime events more than once.

Since most college students don’t have millionaire budgets, I’ll skip the easiest – but most expensive – method to get great seats (scalping).

Instead, I’ll begin with the easiest event to get tickets for – Pirates games. The team has been so awful for most of our young lives that it is trying to lure in students who don’t remember the last time the Pirates had a winning season with special College Cove tickets.

Every Friday night home game, college students can pay $20 and receive a bleacher seat in the outfield, a T-shirt and credits for food and drinks. If you want better seats, then pay a few dollars more for seats much closer to home plate (but you won’t receive the shirt or food).

The Penguins are the next easiest to get into, as they too have a deal for college students. Students who can’t afford the pricey igloo seats at Mellon Arena can try their luck with Student Rush.

Every home game, anyone with a student ID can go wait in line outside Gate 8 and get the best seats remaining for that game.

However, with the recent success of the Pens, students typically get stuck with standing room only seats behind a five-foot-high wall. Nonetheless, you are still at the game, and hockey is much better in person.

You need to be committed, though, as this often requires skipping class to stand in freezing temperatures for hours. Several pizza places, however, will deliver to people waiting in line, and this makes the time go by a little faster. When your feet go numb, just think of how awesome it will be to see Sidney Crosby score a goal.

Obviously, the Steelers are the most difficult professional team to acquire tickets. They just announced that they will be raising their prices to “remain competitive” with the league. I’m not sure what that means, but it’s probably not good for us financially strapped college students.

Most seats are given out to season ticket holders, but they do have a public Ticketmaster sale sometime in the summer, usually in June or July. Make sure you are online right before the time the tickets go on sale and just click your heart out when the minute hand reaches the hour hand. Also, there are pre-sales available for people who are on certain e-mail lists. So go to their Web site and just sign up for whatever you can.

As for concerts, there are two magic words: fan clubs.

Fan club members receive pre-sale passwords where they can buy the best seats at the venue before anyone else has a chance, and it is all for face value. Most fan club memberships are only around $20, and you can split the membership cost with whomever you take to the show.

There are also other great advantages to being a fan club member. Message boards allow you to talk to other fans from all over the world, and many artists give members free gifts for signing up. But the best perk to fan clubs is a chance at meeting the artist.

For concerts at the Petersen Events Center, you can avoid all those outrageous Internet convenience fees by going straight to the box office at the Pete (since when does anyone charge for convenience anyway, isn’t that what a service is for?).

Pack a cooler, wake up with the sun and try to be the first one in line. Not many people take the box office route nowadays, and if you are first in line, you are nearly guaranteed front row seats.

As for Pitt sports, use my.pitt.edu to access the athletic page under student services, and you can buy football season tickets for $25 (half the cost of last years’).

Basketball is trickier, since demand is much higher. Use the same Web site as football, but you need to put in a request for a ticket before you can actually buy it. If you want to go to the bigger games toward the end of the year, you need to go to the earlier games in order to acquire loyalty points. Although, it is very common that someone who has never been to a game can get a ticket for Georgetown or West Virginia.

But you need to get in line early to make sure you don’t get stuck in the overflow nosebleeds – the students that get sent up there tend to be boring and even angry.

Many Broadway shows and other excellent theatrical performances come to Pittsburgh throughout the year, and the easiest way to get tickets is through Pitt Arts.

Now that you know how to score the best tickets for face values, you can become “that guy” (or girl) who always goes to Steelers or Pens games and always has floor seats for the best concerts. Enjoy bragging to your friends.