The booking of The Beatles in Pittsburgh was arranged by Tim Tormey and his protege Pat DiCesare. The latter wrote a long piece for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2009 in which he detailed the events. Tormey was managing Lou Christie and therefore knew Roz Ross at the William Morris Agency, which handled Christie. Ross put Tormey in touch with Norman Weiss. Lenny Litman had already announced he had booked The Beatles so there was pressure on Tormey and DiCesare to seal a deal before Litman's was signed. Ross then called DiCesare and advised him that he could get the rights to sign up The Beatles for $5,000 in cash, which DiCesare then obtained from his father. A deal was then negotiated for The Beatles to receive $25,000 (negotiated down from $35,000 by DiCesare) or 60% of gross sales, whichever was higher.
The concert was announced in the Pittsburgh newspapers on May 14, 1964. All tickets were priced at $5.90 and were to be obtained by mail only from Tim Tormey Associates, P.O. Box 431, Pittsburgh 22, PA. Tormry told reporter Kaspar Monahan the day before that he had spent over two months negotiating with General Artists Corp, the organization run by Weiss. Capacity was to be 11,300 with around 100 police in attendance.
Arrangements at the Pittsburgh Arena were to be identical to a previous concert by Judy Garland (19 Oct 1961, the first-ever concert there), while the Dave Clark 5 were due to play there on June 5. On July 28, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the original contractual clause that no seats be sold behind the stage had now been rescinded and that 1200 seats would therefore be made available in the upper rear section behind the platform, adding to 11,431 already bought in the original sale.
Arrangements for the day of the concert hit a snag: booking a hotel proved too problematic. There had been major problems caused by mob scenes when the Dave Clark 5 had stayed at the Carlton House. It was therefore agreed that the group would fly straight to Cleveland after the concert.
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