Pittsburgh, Annual Meeting
1 Some individuals are encouraging everyone to go to Pittsburgh October 1, 1972. The Society hopes that the brothers throughout the United States and Canada will use the spirit of a sound mind and realize that an arena seating 14,000 people will not seat everyone from California to Maine. Here are a few facts that you should take into consideration:
2 Usually the brothers and sisters around Pittsburgh, to the number of 800 to 1,000, come to the annual meeting when it is on weekdays. When the annual meeting happens to fall on a Sunday many more than that attend. Within a radius of 100 miles of Pittsburgh there are approximately 16,000 publishers. These alone could fill the arena. Within a radius of 150 miles there are 34,000 publishers. So even if these brothers and sisters would come to Pittsburgh on Sunday, October 1, half of them would not get into the arena.
3 There will be no reserved seats for the annual meeting at Pittsburgh, except for members of the Pennsylvania corporation and the graduating class of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead. The students are being taken to Pittsburgh this year for the first time, to attend the annual meeting and at the same time to have their graduation exercises.
4 If people are going to come from faraway places they may be very disappointed in that they will not be able to get into the arena. Last time the annual meeting was held in the same place on a weekend there were 11,793 in attendance, and these were local people. We hope, therefore, that everyone will use the spirit of a sound mind. If any are promoting charter flights and special buses and other tours to Pittsburgh for the annual meeting they may want to think twice before deciding to come. The local brothers and sisters within the vicinity of Pittsburgh will very likely fill the auditorium.