Pitt must learn from ticket mistakes

Welcome to Panther Country – a place with great promise and limited opportunity. After coming… Welcome to Panther Country – a place with great promise and limited opportunity. After coming in like a loud, controversial lion, the basketball ticket saga left like a disgusted, disappointed lamb.

The final season tickets were sold Friday to a group of students that had camped in to get them, and while some efforts were made to bring a little redemption to the fallen process, it was the students rather than the administrators that made them.

The lottery – a process intended to make ticket sales quick, efficient and fair – gradually spiraled into a week-long, complicated mess. Many students, disappointed by the lottery and desperate for tickets, arrived at the William Pitt Union as early as 1 p.m. Thursday to prepare their campsites. WPU manager Chris Chergi, reluctant to allow students to block the doorway, moved the campers inside to spend the night on the main floor.

As the line formed inside the building, the University’s failure to organize became painfully apparent. No one in line had any idea what was going on, and the evening was defined by confusion. Two students at the head of the line – Jon Wietholter and Jason Langer – were placed in charge of getting everyone signed in, and they somehow managed to run the show throughout the night with little assistance and no compensation from the University.

Even though it was advertised that tickets would go on sale at 9 a.m. Friday, each camper was given a wristband at 8:30 p.m. Thursday and attendance was taken every hour. This came as quite a shock to those who showed up at 7 a.m. Friday, assuming they were first in line, but finding that there were no tickets left.

Student Government Board President Kevin Washo Jr. and members Pat Creighton and Jason Somma helped pass the evening by buying pizza for the students in line, using money allotted by the board. Their efforts weren’t enough to make up for the administration’s oversights.

Pitt administrators must learn a few things from this whole experience. A more organized system of selling tickets must be developed – quickly. There will be tickets for individual games on sale throughout the season, and people will be camping out accordingly.

If the University responds with better tactics in the future – by providing enough season tickets for all the students who want them – this fiasco may not have been for nothing. But for now, a team with world class Pitt talent must play in a world class Pitt stadium that is largely devoid of student fans.