Is the "Waiting List" dead?
- Thread starter PittGuy00
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Don't know. There were always some tickets available even when there was a waiting list. However, they were mostly "cats and dogs" singles that didn't sit 2 or more together. Maybe that has changed as yinzer interest wanes due to 2 non-NCAA years out of the last four.
We could go on and on about rhe weak OOC schedule but I also think start times of the games is an issue . 9 pm starts no thanks , Saturday & Sunday's at 4pm not really interested. Seat donations it all adds up if your not winning. Winning sells seats.
They cold called me about season tix for hoops about 2 months ago. So yes. I would assume it's dead.
The 'waiting list' is used to call people on it a bit early when single game tickets are available.
Actually, they have called donors who were football season ticket holders and solicited them to buy basketball season tickets for about 10 years.
The Waiting List was mostly a wildly successful marketing ploy, magnifying the concept of scarcity. The fastest way to get to buy season tickets was simply to join the boosters'club and donate the required amount to qualify you to buy a pair of tickets. I suppose some people did get called to buy tickets as their turn came up on the Waiting List but anyone who was proactive and donated could get them almost immediately.
After the first few years, tickets were pretty much always available, certainly after Jeff Long's Priority Seating plan pushed some of the original non-donor season ticket buyers out.
Four or five years ago a guy I worked with was convinced by one of his sons to put their name on the waiting list shortly after that year's Final Four. By the end of the summer they were called by the ticket office and told that if they made a $100 donation they could get two tickets. So the "waiting list" has been a myth since at least then, if not longer.
As I have said before, to follow truth in advertising guidelines Pitt should have been required to call it the "Get an email when we have tickets available for sale, which is just about every single game" list.
As I have said before, to follow truth in advertising guidelines Pitt should have been required to call it the "Get an email when we have tickets available for sale, which is just about every single game" list.
As I said, know of at least two current hoops season ticket holders who were football ticket holders and booster club donors who were called by the Ticket Office and offered season tickets around 10 years ago. I know of a couple more who were never on the waiting list, but simply phoned, gave their donor infornation and were sold tickets immediately, about 4 years ago.
I've posted this every year and every year people still seem surprised the Waiting List isn't the gospel truth.
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In 2002-2003, I put my e-mail on the "waiting list" to start buying an extra ticket for my wife. I got that ticket the very next year. But ever since, I've received e-mails and notifications as part of the "waiting list."
I have no doubt that Pitt does have an e-mail list of around 11,000 address for hops, and this is what they call the waiting list. Whether or not many (or any) or these folks are "waiting" to buy tickets ... well that's a completely different story.
I dont know. It just seems like bad business practice to pretend like it is very difficult to obtain Pitt tickets and make people sign up for a fake waiting list (people generally do not likr waiting lists for anything, its not a positive thing) when we are having real problems selling tickets and getting the people that buy tickets to actually show up.
At this point, Barnes should be standing on top of the Cathedral with a megaphone telling people that whoever wants to buy tickets can do so.
At this point, Barnes should be standing on top of the Cathedral with a megaphone telling people that whoever wants to buy tickets can do so.
It doesn't matter anyway.
People who want tickets get them, regardless.
Signing up for the wait list takes no effort.
I'm on it, but I won't buy season tickets unless we move back.
I really don't even get to use our football tickets.
People who want tickets get them, regardless.
Signing up for the wait list takes no effort.
I'm on it, but I won't buy season tickets unless we move back.
I really don't even get to use our football tickets.
Problem is not enough people want them and by pretending there is a waiting list, it scares off a bunch of fringe yinzers who dont want to take the 5-10 minutes required to sign up for tickets they think they might not get for 5-10 years.
More or less, that's what they are doing. Just about everyone who wants season tickets has purchased them.
This just isn't hoops town. Waiting list or no waiting list, this isn't going to change anytime soon, I'm sorry to say.
The actual problem is that it discourages legitimate single-game sales. You can't just open up the website and buy tickets today for a game in February. I have talked to several family members over the years that would love to attend a game or two per year, but think it's basically impossible. StubHub makes that pretty easy, but tickets more than a couple weeks out are always outrageously priced.
I have always said Pitt should identify 1-2 sections of the arena as single-game only and make them available to the general public.
Maybe, but this could provide a further disincentive to a few season ticket holders.
Every game, there are e-mails that go out stating that tickets are available. Dozens of tickets are available on stub hub. Walk up to the Pete and scalpers have handfuls of tickets going unsold. It's been this way for some time, really starting as far back as the 2009-2010 season.
Yes, but none of that is public-facing. That's not the way the ticket office should operate. If a friend or family member said they wanted 4 tickets to an arbitrary December home game, what would you tell them to do?
Actually, I've been asked this question (maybe not for 4 tickets, but for 2), and I've said: "there are usually tickets available before every game - just call the ticket office."
I know of at least two times this has worked -- and I don't think these were December games either.
It scares off nobody.
If people are interested in attended..they get tickets.
End of discussion.
Someone could call the ticket office on November 1 and buy 4 tickets for any game in the season?
Without a time machine...I'd suggest probably...unless people can identify situations where they were not available.
No, because they don't put individual game tickets on sale until a week or so before the game. However someone could have purchased individual game tickets for almost every home game we've played over the last four or five seasons simply by going on line the day they put tickets on sale and buying them. There have been a few occasions, for instance the Duke home game, that they never put any single game tickets on sale on the web site. However there have also been seasons where tickets for every home game were available as single game sales at some point.
Actually, if there is going to be general availability of individual tickets then waiting to put them on sale until a week before the game is a pretty stupid idea. Announce some time around the first of December that there are going to be "a limited number" of single game tickets available for all conference games on sale on the web site starting (insert date a week or so later here). Actually advertise it to more than just the email list. Don't get shut out, get your tickets now! Pitt basketball tickets make a great Christmas gift! Etc. And then, you know, actually sell the tickets. People won't buy what they don't know is available, and Pitt has done a great job of making sure than people don't know that tickets are actually availalbe.
Huh? Have you seen The Pete in Nov/Dec. Actual attendance for some of those games is as low as 3000-4000 (7000-8000 is what gets announced)
Everybody is forgetting that Pitt changed their policy last season and opened single game tickets up for every game including ACC games BEFORE the season after the seaso ticket selling season was basically finished. Im not 100 pct sure if UNC, Syr, and Lou were available then but I think they were. I know I went on in Nov and looked at the March Miami game to see how many tickets were available for purchase because I thought since that game was so many months away with a bad start time (Wed 8PM), it probably didnt have any single game sales 4 months prior. I think I counted 1500-2000 available tickets.
Point is, you CAN buy single games a few months out now. That's one positive change.
I've been rightfully called the "Bob Smizik attendance grouch," but even I would say that I've NEVER seen a game as low as 3,000-4,000 despite what is announced. (With the exception of the CBI and NIT games of course) Maybe the lowest I would even suggest is about 6,000. The only other exception was the Seton Hall game played when we got 20 inches of snow. They announced just under 7,000 (which was a complete guess since there were absolutely no tickets taken or turnstiles at the game).
I suggested that the real attendance was closer to 4,000 that night.
Perhaps Joe can chime in, as he's better at counting attendance than anyone. And he's the only guys CLOSE to me in actually being at the Pete for all the games. But I suspect than he'd even agree that 3,000-4,000 is TOO low of an estimate, even for the least attended games.
Well, since you asked....
6,000 is just under half full, and I think that there have certainly been times, not many, but at least a few, when the building was clearly less than half full. 4,000-ish at the absolute lowest would probably be in the ballpark, in my opinion.
6,000 is just under half full, and I think that there have certainly been times, not many, but at least a few, when the building was clearly less than half full. 4,000-ish at the absolute lowest would probably be in the ballpark, in my opinion.
Well, I did ask ...
I'll still stick to 6,000, or maybe even dip to 5,000 based on your thought. Regardless, I don't think it's quite as low as SMF is suggesting.
But one thing I'm completely sure of -- there were NOT almost 7,000 there when we played Seton Hall in Feb 2010.
The funniest thing about the number was that it was an exact number -- 6,681. They would have been better off going with something like 6,800. But giving an exact number gave all the evidence that is needed that the attendance number is simply "made up."
How many upper deck seats do you think there are? My guess is 5000. There have been numerous games where they let uppe4 deck folks sit in the Zoo, which still didnt fill the Zoo. For those games, there were only maybe a few dozen people left in the upper deck. So, right there, you have a 7500 seat arena with really nobody in the upper deck. Sorry, but aint no way 6000 of the 7500 lower bowl tickets are filled for games like this. You're still looking at maybe half if we're lucky.
Let me ask you this, if actual attendance was honestly 3,128 for a game, do you think Pitt would announce that actual number?
Yes, this is exactly my point. If that is what happened last year, then I am speaking unintelligently. If a family wants to buy Pirates tickets, they call the ticket office and pick the game they want. If you want Pitt football tickets, you can go on the website and buy them right now. There is no reason that Joe Sixpack should need to know that he should be on a list, waiting for an email, to enter a code 48 hours before a game, to MAYBE get tickets. If you want to do OOC vs ACC at different release dates, that would be fine too.
There were more people at that blizzard game than at the first two CBI games. I can't speak to the later CBI games because I was out of town. 6800 is too high but probably more than 5000.
Blizzard attendance was around 2500 (2000 students, 500 regular fans). Since nobody was in the upper deck, saying there were 5000 there for the blizzard assumes the lower level was mostly full.
CBI was 1000-1500 and that might have neen exaggerated.
Can we stop turning every thread into an attendance estimation contest? Nobody cares. The Pitt counts are wrong. So what?
What do you think it would be like without those tickets being already paid for ? I couldn't even give some of tickets away for free.
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