Basketball season is right around the corner, and it's time to start thinking about getting season tickets.
The Athletic Department has announced that the Line - when students sleep over at the Palestra to get their hands on the choice seats for the upcoming season - will take place on Oct. 5. But the line forming outside of Irvine Auditorium on that very same night may put a damper on Penn basketball's annual kickoff event.
The Social Planning and Events Committee has made an announcement of its own. Rock artist Ben Kweller will be headlining this year's main fall concert - on Oct. 5 at Irvine.
On the surface, it would appear that Penn has really shot itself in the foot on this one. Ideally, SPEC would sell all 1,100 tickets for its fall concert, and the Athletic Department would draw as many students as possible to build a strong and spirited student section for basketball games.
But how can students be two places at once? How can students be asked to choose between two events, especially considering they are bombarded by publicity from both parties urging them to take part?
Somewhere along the line, there was a serious lack of coordination between two groups integral to Penn student life that need to be working in concert rather than butting heads.
But all may not be lost just yet.
According to SPEC co-director and College sophomore Preston Hershorn, his office contacted the Athletic Department Tuesday to try to work out a mutual solution to the problem.
Hershorn said that an agreement was reached that would allow students holding tickets to the concert to check into the Line, then go with a Line leader to and from Irvine Auditorium for the Kweller show while the remainder of the basketball fans remain at the Palestra, as usual.
"We don't want to make kids choose between going to the concert and getting season basketball tickets," Hershorn said. "They're both good Penn traditions and big Penn events."
For argument's sake, I'll drink his Kool-Aid and agree that the SPEC concert qualifies as a "tradition." But even if this proposed solution becomes a reality, and students can indeed experience both events on that Friday evening, pressing problems remain.
The conflict reflects a glaring lack of foresight on somebody's part. Hershorn puts SPEC's decision somewhere in May or June, while Athletic Department coordinator of marketing and promotions Brian Head says his office set the date sometime in August.
Both cited Penn's jam-packed event schedule and facility availability as reasons they were forced into selecting the date they did. But Head's office lost in that jam-packed schedule the minute detail that a 1,000-person student event would be taking place that weekend.
According to Head, he and his office were not even aware of the concert until recently, by which time it was too late to change nights. Either SPEC was not forthcoming enough with its planning, or the Athletic Department was too inwardly focused to identify a potential problem.
If a compromise had been reached that harmed neither event, none of this would be relevant. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Allowing students to leave the Line for three hours puts the very nature of one of Penn's best sports traditions right in the line of fire.
"It's a Penn tradition, and we think all students should participate," Head said. "It's a great spirit-building event."
But the spirit-building that Head refers to includes the solidarity among a group of students forced to spend a night in Penn's famed basketball arena, all after the ultimate prize: The sickest seats in the house to watch Penn's most exciting team do its thing.
Unfortunately, some of them will be humming tunes while their peers are sweating it out.
Ilario Huober is a senior International Relations major from Syracuse, N.Y., and former Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is
ihuober@sas.upenn.edu.
