I have to ask a question about the pre-sold lots...

[YourPittDanceTeam]

around Heinz Field.
As far as I can understand, ALL of the lots around Heinz Field are pre-sold through the University of Pittsburgh. The lots I am referring to are the Gold, Red, Blue and Green lots.
I have been told by Pitt that in order to park in a certain lot, you had to reach a certain number on Panther Club points in order to qualify for that given lot. I have also been told, that they fill the pre-sold parking spaces based upon your Panther Club points. In other words, those with the higher point total are given first access to the lots closer to Heinz Field, then they fill the remaining lots accordingly. So by the time they are done, all the pre-sold lots are sold out.
My question is, yesterday as we were pulling into our pre-sold lot, we saw a sign on the window of where the ticket taker sits that said "Parking $20.00". We asked if you could just park in there in game day by paying and we were told, yes. The ticket taker was told by their boss that people could park in our pre-sold lot, by just paying on game day.
Does any one else find a problem with this or am I just over reacting. I know a couple of years ago when Notre Dame came to town, the same ticket taker told us that they were instructed to make sure that there were cars in every spot, because they over sale every pre-sold lot around Heinz Field.
Make's no sense to me.

 

[SoufOaklin4Life]

around Heinz Field.
As far as I can understand, ALL of the lots around Heinz Field are pre-sold through the University of Pittsburgh. The lots I am referring to are the Gold, Red, Blue and Green lots.
I have been told by Pitt that in order to park in a certain lot, you had to reach a certain number on Panther Club points in order to qualify for that given lot. I have also been told, that they fill the pre-sold parking spaces based upon your Panther Club points. In other words, those with the higher point total are given first access to the lots closer to Heinz Field, then they fill the remaining lots accordingly. So by the time they are done, all the pre-sold lots are sold out.
My question is, yesterday as we were pulling into our pre-sold lot, we saw a sign on the window of where the ticket taker sits that said "Parking $20.00". We asked if you could just park in there in game day by paying and we were told, yes. The ticket taker was told by their boss that people could park in our pre-sold lot, by just paying on game day.
Does any one else find a problem with this or am I just over reacting. I know a couple of years ago when Notre Dame came to town, the same ticket taker told us that they were instructed to make sure that there were cars in every spot, because they over sale every pre-sold lot around Heinz Field.
Make's no sense to me.

My understanding-

It's essentially two tiered;
Your annual donation puts you in one of three buckets, the over 1,000 , under 1000, and no donation.

The over 1,000 bucket gets ranked by priority points based on their requested lot.
They get the gold lots if desired.
Same with the under 1,000 and no donations.

So the short answer is we really don't have enough people requesting parking to actually fill the lots ..especially every game. The gold lots are almost always wide open

Outside of major games , safe to assume 20% of sold spots are unused.

 

[eastcoasthoops]

around Heinz Field.
As far as I can understand, ALL of the lots around Heinz Field are pre-sold through the University of Pittsburgh. The lots I am referring to are the Gold, Red, Blue and Green lots.
I have been told by Pitt that in order to park in a certain lot, you had to reach a certain number on Panther Club points in order to qualify for that given lot. I have also been told, that they fill the pre-sold parking spaces based upon your Panther Club points. In other words, those with the higher point total are given first access to the lots closer to Heinz Field, then they fill the remaining lots accordingly. So by the time they are done, all the pre-sold lots are sold out.
My question is, yesterday as we were pulling into our pre-sold lot, we saw a sign on the window of where the ticket taker sits that said "Parking $20.00". We asked if you could just park in there in game day by paying and we were told, yes. The ticket taker was told by their boss that people could park in our pre-sold lot, by just paying on game day.
Does any one else find a problem with this or am I just over reacting. I know a couple of years ago when Notre Dame came to town, the same ticket taker told us that they were instructed to make sure that there were cars in every spot, because they over sale every pre-sold lot around Heinz Field.
Make's no sense to me.

My parking has been moved four times in roughly the last ten years. It doesn't seem to have any rhyme or reason. Started in Red 7B, then Red 6, then Gold 4, now Red 5A. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the continued development between PNC and Heinz. But with the Gold lots routinely looking ~50% full, the parking distribution doesn't seem to make much sense.

 

[woodpecker1]

My parking has been moved four times in roughly the last ten years. It doesn't seem to have any rhyme or reason. Started in Red 7B, then Red 6, then Gold 4, now Red 5A. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the continued development between PNC and Heinz. But with the Gold lots routinely looking ~50% full, the parking distribution doesn't seem to make much sense.

I agree totally, I'm at the 500 point level and have been moved more times than I can tell you. I have had as many as 4 parking passes and last year gave up two (which I regret). I was assigned 1 in the red garage and one behind pnc park... why we couldn't get both together sucks... I believe that now that the athletic dept is tracking actual attendance at the games that should also be a factor in determining assignments.. what say you...

 

[eastcoasthoops]

I agree totally, I'm at the 500 point level and have been moved more times than I can tell you. I have had as many as 4 parking passes and last year gave up two (which I regret). I was assigned 1 in the red garage and one behind pnc park... why we couldn't get both together sucks... I believe that now that the athletic dept is tracking actual attendance at the games that should also be a factor in determining assignments.. what say you...

agreed

 

[HailtoPitt]

The parking company knows that many of those spaces wont be filled, even if presold, and they wanted the extra revenue. Either that or some rogue workers saw an easy chance to make some fast money.

They simply don't care if Pitt fans get screwed on game day.

I'm also thinking that a good number of spaces are reserved for the luxury seat holders, mostly people who don't care about using their tickets for Pitt games.

Just make all parking for Pitt games general admission, with exception of people willing to make mega donations.

 

[ratking17]

For you guys in the garages, does it take a long time to get out? I usually park downtown for five bucks and take the t and it seems like that is probably faster than parking in a garage near heinz

 

[levance2]

I'm not sure many of the explanations here make sense. The spots are sold based on your priority points. That much is obvious. There's a rough pecking order of lot preference, although you can call the ticket office and request a "worse" lot if you want. If you're buying multiple passes, or sharing a tailgate between multiple PC members, you can also request to be moved together. I meet up with two other people and we were originally (this year) split over three lots. I called and they said they'd look into it. They called back before tickets were mailed and said they averaged us all out and were able to bump two of us up to a better lot and at least get us in adjacent lots rather than strewn randomly around the North Shore.

This is separate from the issue of open spots or paid entrance. I too have been annoyed by the availability of closer lots than mine. I park in a lot that is usually very full, and then walk through two lots which are about half capacity. If Pitt had any control over this, I really wish they'd group several lots together and make those groupings more or less general admission. Arrive early? Get the closest lot of your grouping.

Most lots which are "presold" are listed as "presold" every game. Knowing the crowd against Duke was so small, they anticipated poor turnout against Cuse and allowed presold lots to take cash, since there would obviously be open spots. This really shouldn't annoy anyone, as it is entirely obvious. You can see similar tactics on very big baseball nights. Usually you can park almost anywhere with cash, but for big games, some garages and lots are labeled as presold, because they can't afford to give away spots based on the volume of pass holders.

 

[JoseLind13]

I have had leases in Red garage, Blue 10 garage, and Allegheny Center garage over the years... We tailgate with friends in the Red lots, so I am content with garage spots.

I have been in Blue 10 garage for the past few years (near PNC Park and Mullen's Bar). It is a hike but they use all 4 exits and move traffic out reasonably quickly, and the location is beautiful for access to HOV on ramp only 2 blocks away. Pre-game entry through the North Side via East Street exit from 279 is very quick, even for packed games. Red garage has similar ease of access to HOV upon exit, but can be a bit more tedious to get to the entrance pre-game. Speed of exit from Red garage usually depends on the success of the police officer halting pedestrian and vehicle traffic at the exit. It's hit or miss.

I only recall the Syracuse and Duke games being posted for $20 cash entry to my garage this year, probably due to expected high no-show rate. I believe all others games were lease access only.