Westy was in line for 16 hours before he bought the first tickets Thursday to Widespread Panic’s July 5 concert atop Snow King Mountain in Jackson Hole.
“I was up there around 4 in the afternoon,” Stephen Westmoreland said. Holding his tickets, he left the sales office just after 8 a.m. the next day.
The in-person sale drew hundreds seeking $120 tickets before sales went online at 10 a.m., when they were quickly snatched up. By noon, tickets on third-party resale sites crept toward the $700 range.
Westmoreland, who was up all night, grumbled about scalpers. “It’s just not cool,” he said.
Many fans spent the night in what grew to a snow-soaked, blocks-long column. They suited up in mountain garb, the odd wet and bedraggled down-filled sleeping bag draped across a shoulder here and there. Several tents were pitched nearby, overnight nests for the most eager.
It might be one of the few times a real estate agent in Jackson Hole stood in line, as one did, for something other than coffee at Persephone Bakery or a ride on the Jackson Hole Aerial Tram on a powder day.
Westmoreland, a local business owner, began following Widespread after the Allman Brothers Band broke up and has seen them “quite a few times,” he said.
“I really wanted to show my support for the band by being the first in line,” he said, tipping his hat to concert organizers for bringing the show to town.
“It was puking snow on us.”
Russell Austin
Russell Austin got in line at 5:45 a.m. and “it was puking snow on us,” he said.
“I grew up with Panic,” the former South Carolina resident said. A 60-year-old painter, window cleaner, ski bum and former ski patroller and instructor, he analyzed the demographics of those ahead of him.
“Everybody there was 50 or older,” he said, admitting that he was reviving a once-avid pursuit. “I haven’t been to a concert since the Grateful Dead at Red Rocks.”
The weather didn’t bother Michelle Ohmart, who was all smiles as she approached the ticket counter around 8 a.m. Her birthday is on July 5.
