In somewhat predictable, though infuriating, fashion, tickets to the upcoming “A Concert for Charlottesville” are being sold on secondary marketplaces, triggering loud complaints by hopeful concertgoers who didn’t score free tickets to the event.
As with any event with headliners like Charlotteville locals Dave Matthews Band, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell Williams, and more, tickets demand far exceeded supply for the concert. That it was free – with a suggested donation going towards healing the Virginia city following the Unite the Right rally in August – made it that much worse when fans saw tickets on sites like Craigslist for as much as $300 each.
“I didn’t get any tickets and it was really upsetting because all my friends got it,” Naseem Hussein told WVIR 29. “It’s unfair. Like, people from Richmond or around the city get tickets and while we, Charlottesville people, didn’t get any and that’s just upsetting and I wonder the people who did the lottery, how did you pick your people?”
Free events such as this often draw negative headlines when opportunists snap up whatever they can grab and try to make a quick buck. I personally recall posting very angrily on social media myself after finding similar listings on Craigslist as Virgin Mobile’s “Free Fest” approached when I lived outside of Baltimore and didn’t get any of the show’s free passes.
Locals will have one final shot at getting free tickets, however. Red Light Management says it will distribute 2,200 tickets at John Paul Jones Arena on the University of Virginia’s campus. fans can line up starting at 8 a.m. with distribution beginning at 10 a.m.
The concert is scheduled for September 24th at UVa’s Scott Stadium, which holds as much as 62,000 people. Preference was said to be given in the lottery to residents of greater Charlottesville and affiliates of the university. Attendees are being encouraged to donate to a fund related to the event at the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation. Beneficiaries of the fund include those injured in the events and their families as well as first responders and organizations devoted to the promotion of healing, unity, and justice, per a release by the University of Virginia.
More details on the the Concert for Charlottesville:
https://www.ticketnews.com/concert-charlottesville-dmb-timberlake-pharrell/
