Contest Offers Chance to Win Concert Tickets and Help Young Patients Fight Cancer

Would you like to see The Who, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Roger Waters in concert while also helping young people who have cancer?

A $10 donation will give you that chance.

Teen Cancer America, an organization started by Peter Townshend and Roger Daltrey of The Who to fund care and lodging in American hospitals specifically for teens and young adults who have cancer, is sponsoring the contest. The winner and a guest will visit the Coachella concert grounds in Indio, California, for the Oct. 14-16 concert — known as Desert Trip — that will feature some of rock-and-roll’s most iconic figures.

Each $10 donation gains a contestant a chance to win two reserved floor seats at the concert; entrance to the venue for all three days; access to the platinum lounge, which includes shaded picnic areas with tables, couches, extra restrooms, food and beverage vendors and a cash bar; a parking pass; up to $1,800 in travel expenses for lodging and airfare, including reservations at La Quinta Inn & Suites; and an autographed event poster.

While there is also a way to enter the contest for free, all donations will go directly to helping Teen Cancer America provide services to young people who have cancer. Entries must be submitted before noon on Oct. 3.

The organization’s work includes building teen-friendly environments, developing standards for age-targeted care, improving collaboration between pediatric and adult specialists and supporting dedicated research aimed at boosting outcomes and survival rates.

Specifically, the organization works with hospitals to develop plans for special adolescent and young adult facilities and programming, and then makes grants — ranging from $100,000 to $1 million — to facilitate their creation. More than a dozen such facilities have been either launched or completed with the organization’s help. Following those efforts, Teen Cancer America remains in partnership with participating hospitals in a continuing effort to raise money.

The organization gets its money through donations, which it encourages through fundraising events. Last year, for example, a U.S. tour by The Who donated $1 from every ticket sale to Teen Cancer America.

For Alec Kupelian, being treated at the Teen Cancer America facility at UCLA Medical Center made all the difference. Diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma at 19, he underwent 17 cycles of chemotherapy that stretched over 10-and-a-half months, as well as six weeks of radiation.

“My options without the program would’ve been getting infused next to a 70-year-old man with prostate cancer or a baby with leukemia who was crying all the time,” Kupelian says. “I got to make friends with other patients. I knew I wasn’t alone.”

To enter the contest for a chance to win tickets to Desert Trip, visit crowdrise.com/DesertTrip.

—Deborah Bell contributed to this story.