The rip-offs began as I drove onto the California State University campus where large red signs directed me to "Event Parking" in a desolate parking garage. I thought it was odd that there were only about six other cars in the garage at the time, especially since the event doors were slated to be open in less than an hour. According to the rate sign at the entrance, it was going to cost me $7 to park. After parking, I was surprised to find that I had about a half mile hike to the venue, but I was even more surprised to find that there was FREE parking directly behind the Convocation Center!
The doors of the event, of course, did not open at the slated time and the staff did not seem concerned. When the staff reluctantly allowed the customers to enter, I found they were charging $2 for badly photocopied programs. Since I was not familiar with the local fighters, I bought a copy, even though the boxing matches I've attended at Mountaineer Racetrack always provided a program free of charge. I was quite disappointed to see that the Musko Promotions program contained nothing but ads, except for one illegible page with the local fighters names (no info on their opponents). Not only was the same amount of info displayed on the poster for the event, but why should a patron have to pay for a program that numerous sponsors had already provided funding for? I wonder if those advertisers knew Musko was going to charge attendees for the programs and thus limit the number of people who would see their poorly formatted ads.
The biggest rip-off came during the so-called 50-50 raffle, where the emcee read off a miscellaneous number and then feigned surprise when no one claimed the $600 prize. Rather than pull another number, Musko apparently decided to keep the full amount raised by the raffle!
I was at least happy with my decision to only purchase a General Admission seat, since those seats proved to be better than many of the higher priced seats. In fact, I saw some patrons move to the general admission section when they were disappointed by their higher priced seats (since the venue was less than a fifth full, there were plenty of seats to choose from).
Also, the competition culled from outside of western PA had such poor records that victories were all but guaranteed for the local fighters. Consequently, I will never attend another event by Musko promotions.