Did you enter the lottery for the last remaining tickets to Ben Folds and Third Eye Blind, and still miss out?
Hope may not be lost - yet.
An anonymously student-created Web site, www.pennbenfoldstickets.com, is providing tickets for the Spring Fling headliner concert tomorrow night.
The Web site - unaffiliated with the Social Planning and Events Committee, which is administering the concert - allows buyers and sellers to submit their maximum and minimum prices.
Users, who must provide their e-mail addresses when posting offers, receive notifications when a match between the buyers and sellers is made.
As of yesterday afternoon, bids for tickets were going for between $35 and $80 dollars.
"I am not making much of a profit. Just enough to cover my hosting and Facebook advertising costs and cover the ticket prices for me and a friend," the site's creator, who has been granted anonymity, wrote in an e-mail.
The student wrote that he or she "decided to start the Web site to make it easier for buyers to find sellers at mutually satisfactory price ranges."
But that doesn't mean that the University - and, specifically, SPEC officials - are sitting by idly.
"We have reported it to the Office of Student Conduct," said Engineering and Wharton senior Matt Mizrahi, co-director of SPEC Concerts.
Pennsylvania has an anti-scalping law, which makes it illegal to sell tickets with a mark up of higher than 25 percent of face value, or of $3, whichever is greater.
So, for a Ben Folds ticket with face value of $25, it is illegal to charge more than $31.25.
Whether sellers up that price is up to them, the site's creator added.
But Wharton freshman Zack Yang says he is suspicious of the site's claims.
"They don't post the prices on the Web site," Yang said, questioning whether the operators of the Web site are saving the best-priced tickets for themselves.
Yang, who did not manage to buy a ticket directly from SPEC, paid $40 to another student for his ticket, but not from the site.
That particular seller - whose name Yang would not disclose - "actually created a Facebook group to auction [the ticket] off," said Yang, who offered $40 up front to snag the ticket.
"I had no idea [SPEC] was selling them," Yang said of the initial sale. "Otherwise, I would've been the first one in line."
Mizrahi pointed out that, while online deals are hard to track down, people scalping in front of the venue tomorrow will be handled by the Penn police.
In the meantime, tickets are also being sold on Craigslist.com, where they're currently going for up to $75 each.
"They are going for ridiculously high prices," said College sophomore Stephanie Danhakl, who said she is still looking for better prices.
Since tickets for the concert sold out on March 27, the second day of sales, SPEC created a lottery system for an additional 200 tickets.
A second round of winners were notified via e-mail yesterday regarding whether they will have the opportunity to purchase a remaining ticket.
The concert is scheduled for tomorrow night at Wynn Commons.
