John Heller, Post-Gazette Jimmy Buffett fans warm up on a flatbed truck in the parking lot before the singer's concert last night at steamy, packed PNC Park. Concertgoers who partied too late had difficulty getting into the ballpark before the concert began. Click photo for larger image.

By Moustafa Ayad
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

About 2,000 Parrot Heads, some wasted away, were stuck outside PNC Park when last night's Jimmy Buffett concert started.

Police officers monitoring the crowd said that at 6 p.m., the scheduled start time for the sold-out concert, the home plate gate had a throng of people as deep as Mazeroski Way is wide and half a block long.

	John Heller, Post-Gazette Tina McDowell adds to the noise as another fan tries to turn down the volume during yesterday's performance by Jimmy Buffett at PNC Park. Click photo for larger image. Concert Review Buffett starts the summer with a steamy show

Pirates spokeswoman Patty Paytas said gates were opened at 4 p.m., but that apparently the crowd thronged the entrances -- the home plate gate in particular -- right before the concert instead of filtering in through all the gates over the two hours before the scheduled start time. There they were bottle-necked by security searches of bags. People began to push, and in the heat, a few began to keel over.

One gate was not open, said Paytas, to accommodate equipment for the concert.

"That was right field, and that's the way it was handled for [Bruce] Springsteen as well," she said. "We were fully staffed. But the majority of people waited until approximately 30 minutes before the show to try to get into the building." The concert didn't actually start until about 6:30 p.m., she added.

Cheryl McFarland, of Bellevue, called the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to complain shortly before 7 p.m.

"We've been standing in line for an hour for a concert that's already started," she said. "I'd like to know, did they not know how many tickets they sold to this concert? The concert has started, we paid $100 for tickets, and we're still standing outside."

Like other concert-goers, she thought that only the home plate gate was opened, and didn't realize she could go to another gate until police officers moved her and others in line to a different gate.

Paytas said the promoter had issued a news release announcing that all the gates except one would be open at 4 p.m. That information was also in the Post-Gazette on Friday. People were using the other gates, but the majority piled in front of home plate gate.

At 6:45 p.m., the crowd outside of the home plate entrance had died down to around 800 people. Several Buffett revelers decided to take it upon themselves and escape from the crowd by climbing onto a ticket sales awning.

One, obviously intoxicated, lifted his arms in touchdown fashion and turned the crowd below into his personal mosh pit. People bounced a green beach ball on the tops of their fingertips as they waited for their turns to enter, until an angry crowd member grabbed the ball and sat on it.

Bottles and beer cans dotted Mazeroski Way. Police ushered stray partiers from the middle of the street onto the sidewalks.

Bill Folman, of Waynesburg, Greene County, said he had stood by the same tree on Mazeroski for 20 minutes. Folman and his wife paid $98 for the Buffett tickets. He decided waiting wasn't worth it and headed to his truck to listen to the first 30 minutes of the concert on his Sirus Satellite radio.

"This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in my life," said Folman, who also didn't know the other gates were open. "This was an outrageous amount of poor planning -- just absurd and you can quote me."

Several ticket holders lay on the curb, exhausted from either standing in line or partying.

Police cordoned off much of the street at that point and started ushering people to the other gates. Police then shut down East General Robinson Street so that three ambulances could make their ways through the street.

The crowd outside PNC Park had all but disappeared by around 7 p.m.

At least six people were treated for crowd-related injuries. One was a seizure, but most were heat exhaustion or heat-related ailments.