THE $130 million John Paul Jones arena at the University was built with a massive donation from Paul Tudor Jones II and contributions from other donors. It has made Charlottesville a major concert destination. This is good for Charlottesville, but in many cases it has been difficult for students to get tickets to the biggest events. One would think the University, which invested so much donor money into the arena, would want to offer students tickets to these events before beginning sales to the general public. Unfortunately, it turns out not to be so simple.
For the most part, the University is doing what it can to help students benefit from concerts at JPJ. But it is the performers who rent the venue that control how tickets are sold and not the University. Larry Wilson runs operations at JPJ for SMG, the company the University has hired to manage the arena. He explained to me that when big acts come to town he requests that they allow some tickets to be made available for pre-sales to students. Frequently these requests are turned down. When this happens SMG has little leverage over the acts that play JPJ since Charlottesville is a reasonably small market and performers could easily go elsewhere if they were pressured by SMG.
The challenges students face in getting tickets stem in large part from the internet. It used to be possible for dedicated student fans to get their hands on tickets by being willing to camp out at the box office for them. But with the rise of internet ticket sales, many concerts sell out in the first minute. Even if one is on the online sales Web site seeking tickets the moment sales begin, getting them is often impossible. On the other hand, ticket brokers get their hands on plenty of tickets and then immediately offer to resell them at multiples of the face value price, making it impossible for students to afford them.
But if the University cannot force bands to make pre-sale tickets available, there is something it can do to make it a more attractive option for them. One of the reasons that bands might hesitate to allow pre-sale tickets to students is that they fear students will resell the tickets to ticket brokers. These ticket brokers might then resell the tickets at greatly increased prices before sales to the general public begin. According to Wilson, this is precisely what happened with many of the pre-sold tickets students bought for the Rolling Stones' concert.
To make best-selling performers like Bruce Springsteen, who refused to allow pre-sales to his upcoming JPJ performance, more willing to allow pre-sales to students, I would suggest two things. First, students should be allowed to buy single tickets only, rather than groups of tickets with higher total resale value. Further, students could be asked to sign an honor pledge promising that they will not resell their tickets. If they found themselves unable to attend the concert, they could give their ticket back to SMG, perhaps at a fee if there is some chance that the ticket won't be able to be resold. An alternative would use a system like SHOTS that would require students to present their student IDs to gain admission to the concert.
Part of the responsibility to get access to the pre-sale tickets that are offered lies with students. On occasion there are pre-sales specifically to students, as was the case in the Rolling Stones concert last year. Generally though, pre-sale tickets go through SMG's "Keeping up with the Joneses" e-mail list that is open to the general public, including students. Wilson explained to me this is at the requests of the bands, who benefit from taking advantage of the publicity the e-mail list offers. While SMG might be able to do more to convince acts to sell some pre-sale tickets to students specifically, students who want a better chance to attend concerts should sign up for SMG's program.
Ultimately, performers do well by having good images. I think it is reasonable to believe that they would want to appeal to student fans who often are some of the most devoted followers of music and help to spread excitement. I have offered one reason bands might be unwilling to offer pre-sales to students and proposed a solution that might address it. SMG should do everything it can to learn what makes performers hesitate to allow pre-sales. Only once those concerns are known can solutions be achieved and only then will students here at the University be able to benefit fully from JPJ.
Andrew Winerman's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at awinerman@cavalierdaily.com.
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