By Adam Bednar
abednar@patuxent.com

It pays to negotiate.

I.M.P., promoter of last weekend’s third annual Virgin Mobile Festival rock show, gave nearly 175 Mt. Washington residents 2-for-1 ticket vouchers as a concession to the community, which was worried about traffic, parking and late-night noise.

For the second year in a row, residents who are Mt. Washington Improvement Association members were allowed to buy tickets at the heavily discounted rate.

Members were given vouchers and were able to use them at the box office the day of the show.  

It was a good deal for rock fan Peter Clough, 50, co-organizer of the voucher system and an avid music fan who maintains the blog site www.dadscarradio.com. He was one of the association members who got two $175, two-day tickets for the price of one.

In the glow of the late afternoon sun Aug. 9, Clough and his daughter, Chelsea, 16, watched The Offspring play their brand of thrashing punk rock at Pimlico Race Course.

The discount eased the apprehension that Clough remembered having in 2006, when residents were caught off guard by the first Virgin Fest.

“I got this e-mail and I saw The Who and the Red Hot Chili Peppers were playing and I thought, ‘Oh cool, is this in Washington or Philadelphia? Then I looked and saw that it was at Pimlico.”

At the time, the neighborhood was nervous. Mac Nachlas, then association president, complained that promoters hadn’t called community leaders to alert them the concert was coming.

The Mt. Washington neighborhood was especially gun-shy because of bad experiences with other events at Pimlico, such as excessive drinking and debauchery on the infield during the annual Preakness Stakes.

There were also concerns about the timing of the first festival because it was held in September that year, and overlapped with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

Although the concerts have gone smoothly each year, the association, I.M.P. and the city have continued to negotiate.

Clough said the discount tickets came out of negotiations last year over issues such as making sure there were enough police officers at the festival, that the festival would end by 10 p.m. each night, and that concertgoers wouldn’t park and camp in the community overnight.

The association asked for discounted tickets in as an afterthought, after more pressing matters were addressed by I.M.P. and the city.

Clough said the subject was broached as, “Oh, by the way, can we get any tickets?”

Aaron Meisner, the association president, said he asked members what concessions they wanted from I.M.P, and many said they would like discounted concert tickets.

“We are very grateful to I.M.P., who have been very generous in extending this offer to the community for the second year,” Meisner said.

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