The St. Patrick’s Day concert at Cal Poly
sold out! Well, it’s a free concert, so
“sold out” is a strong thing to say.
The university gave away 5,000 tickets
on March 5 to a concert featuring Zhu and
Galantis—EDM musicians—that starts at 4
a.m. on March 15. Doors at 3:45 a.m.
Wow! Amazing! And very early. We’re
going to keep that many people off of SLO’s
city streets! Well, kind of. Hopefully that
sound doesn’t travel too far.
You think people are going to wake up at
2 a.m. to get ready for that concert or party
through the night at one of those St. Fratty’s
Day block parties the university is trying to
prevent?
Stay off the telephone poles this year, kids!
And I’d keep off the roofs, too. Some students
had a very bad day in 2015. A very bad day.
Fines will start between $750 and $1,000 for
partying.
Tickets to the Morning on the Green—A
Mustang Music Festival (get it, green?) were
gone in three minutes, and Cal Poly has way
more than 5,000 students—or 2,500 students
who could bring a friend. What about the
other 18,000 to 20,000 students?
“Instant sell out is crazy. I’ll just be at
the block party,” one student wrote on Cal
Poly’s Instagram page. “But in a respectful
controlled way of course.”
“Limiting access was not the way to go,”
another wrote.
“Literally, why would you offer this and not
provide enough tickets,” yet another posted.
Yeah. A lot of students are bummed. Don’t
worry, though!
According to Cal Poly’s “Don’t Test Your
Luck” website—oh, I get it, “luck,” like St.
Patrick’s Day—there will be a standby line at
the venue. You can wait in line for three hours
if you’re into that kind of thing, and those in
the line will be admitted starting a 7 a.m.
Standing in line on a cold morning and
not being drunk or high sounds really great,
doesn’t it? Definitely doing that!
Cal Poly President Jeff Armstrong told
Mustang News that students better beeline it
to the event if they’re going: “Get out of the
neighborhood as quick as you can,” he said.
“We don’t want an illegal street party. So get
to the event.”
Unless you don’t have tickets. Then, get
thee gone!
General admission tickets to see Galantis
in Missouri on March 28 start at $44. Zhu
is playing at South-By-Southwest in Austin
on March 15 (festival badges start at about
$800). This concert sounds expensive.
So how much is this costing the school?
Mmm. You’re going to have to wait to
find out. Matt Lazier, the university’s
information gatekeeper—aka, bridge troll—
has kept that gate firmly locked. He told
New Times and every other news outlet
in town that there wouldn’t be anything
available about that until after
the event is over.
What? That’s weird.
New Times followed up, saying
it sounded like the university
didn’t know how much it would
cost. Lazier said, no. That’s not
the case. “We will be able to talk
further about budget after St.
Patrick’s Day.”
So. The university knows how much
it’s spending—obviously more than the
$160,000 already budgeted for concerts this
year because this whole thing seems very
much like a surprise! It just isn’t going to tell
anyone.
Why? Is it going to cost $1 million?
I thought that Cal Poly was a public
university using public funds. Don’t we
have a right to this information? Sounds
like the school feels entitled to keep what it
wants to itself and release the information
when it wants to. A lawsuit over a Public
Records Act request recently spanked
Cal Poly into following state law about
disclosing public records—but, apparently,
only kind of.
The school’s also asking for volunteers
to staff the dorms over St.
Fratty’s Day weekend to
keep the riffraff out. They’ll
get paid, I think. But still.
Seems like that could have
been taken care of at the
beginning of the school year,
right? Why is that ask just
going out now? It’s not like St. Fratty’s Day is a
new holiday around here.
You know what is new around
here? Central Coast Community
Energy (3CE). I mean, it’s
not new new. What is new is
that it can now serve all SLO
County residents who want to
be a customer. Better put, every
resident who no longer wants to
be a PG&E customer.
However, it sure seems like it’s hard
for 3CE to do what it set out to all those
years ago when it first made its pitch to
SLO County residents: renewable energy,
less greenhouse gas emission, a cheaper
alternative to PG&E, and clean community
energy investments.
Rates are no longer that much cheaper
than PG&E’s—only 1 to 2 percent and
sometimes no percent. Shocker. The
renewable energy flowing into 3CE
customers’ homes is only 30 percent
renewable at this point. It was supposed to
be 60 percent by 2025. But don’t worry! The
company said it will be 60 percent by 2026
and 100 percent by 2030.
Why do I doubt that?
I guess 3CE at least
gives us a choice of
electricity provider,
even if it is between a
government-run entity
and a corporate one. Δ
The Shredder is not
into EDM. Send electricity to shredder@
newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Mar 6-16, 2025.
You have to get the bill before you know what it costs? Doesn’t that sound a lot like the Obama care fiasco?
Tony:
You are right about the ACA being a “fiasco.” It was a fiasco because it didn’t go far enough. It is just one more “public/private” scam, similar to Obama’s “shovel ready” jobs during the financial collapse. If Democrats really wanted to help the American people, they would have created a public option/national healthcare. All these scams are what led Americans to vote for Trump. Congratulations Democrats, you managed to destroy yourselves.