Music fans need ticket lotteries, Cheetos

Those who have been on campus in the past month may have noticed the increasing number of… Those who have been on campus in the past month may have noticed the increasing number of musical acts who have made the Petersen Events Center the hot Pittsburgh venue.

Just before finals week, I was unable to move my car from an upper-campus lot above the Pete because streams of preteen girls filled the streets on their way to the Avril Lavigne concert. Nothing disrupts traffic patterns like a flock of screaming teens in neckties.

Just a day later, it was more of the same. Angst-filled high school children flocked to the house that Pete built to see bubblegum-punk sensation Good Charlotte. Again, I had trouble moving my car, and I’m fairly certain that several of them cursed my family as I drove by with windows down and Paul Simon blaring.

Now, it’s great that Pitt found a way to cash in on this building during the basketball off-season and make it profitable year-round. But, it’s also fair to say that Pitt has slighted its students multiple times in recent years, and this may be the ideal opportunity to give back.

Lavigne and Good Charlotte aren’t geared toward the collegiate taste. When musical acts like Lavigne come to the Pete, the crowd they’re going to draw will be comprised mostly of non-students.

If Pitt isn’t going to bring in acts that appeal to a greater number of its students, it could at least let us in on the action in an effort to make up for basketball ticket-gate.

In accordance with Pitt’s policies surrounding other ticket sales, here is what should happen: First, if kids want to get tickets to see Lavigne at the Pete, they would have to wait in a line in order to pick up a ticket-lottery wristband for the minimal fee of five dollars. This would require both they and their parents to spend at least 36 straight hours camped in the lounge of the William Pitt Union, eating week-old Cheetos.

After this, 2,500 winning wristband numbers will be drawn. Everyone possessing a winning wristband will have the opportunity to purchase one ticket to see Avril, Nick Carter or whomever.

Then the remaining 10,000 tickets would be sold only to Pitt students, at a five-dollar discount per ticket, with each student allowed to purchase a maximum of two tickets.

All the whiny, little kids who didn’t win the ticket lottery will be able to purchase a ticket to the concert from any one of the 5,000 student ticket scalpers who surround the Pete hours before show time.

After all of the tickets have been scalped, the students, who will all learn an important lesson in entrepreneurship, will give five percent of their total profits back to Pitt.

Everyone wins.

Pitt makes money by selling tickets and ticket wristbands, the students get enough money to patronize one or more of Oakland’s fine alcohol-vending establishments that weekend and preteen girls get to hear Lavigne whine about the difficulties of growing up in an upper-middle class Canadian family.

While I’m not certain that this arrangement is legal, it certainly benefits everyone involved. And if this is out of the question, could they at least bring in Paul Simon?

Matt Wein is an aspiring columnist for “The Pitt News.” He can be reached at mattwein@hotmail.com