Robert Smith wants to change ‘the system that values profit over people’ after he has 7,000 scalped The Cure tickets canceled
The Cure’s Robert Smith continues his ongoing fight against the numerous financial challenges within the ticketing industry. We previously reported that The Cure is frustrated with Ticketmaster’s ‘deceptive’ ticket pricing, and earlier this month, Smith convinced Ticketmaster to provide modest refunds to verified ticket buyers due to the “excessively high” service fees.
On March 16, following the release of The Cure’s US tour tickets, he wrote on Twitter: “After further discussion, Ticketmaster has agreed with us that many of the fees being charged are excessively high, and as a gesture of goodwill, they have offered a $10 per ticket refund to all verified fan accounts for Lowest Ticket Price (‘LTP’) transactions.”
Now the band’s frontman is taking things even further. This time, he’s targeting secondary resale websites. Just a few weeks ago, Smith managed to obtain several refunds from Ticketmaster for fans hoping to see the British band during their upcoming “Lost World” tour. Smith now reveals that they have cancelled 7,000 scalped tickets and announced a plan to resell these tickets and donate the original fees to the charity Amnesty International.
When the tour-the band’s first North American venture in seven years-was initially announced on March 9, The Cure explicitly stated that they had opted out of Ticketmaster’s “platinum” and “dynamically priced” ticket options, both of which have notoriously contributed to higher ticket prices. Consequently, thousands of scalpers took advantage, with Smith tweeting on Monday morning that “Approximately 7k tickets across around 2200 orders have been cancelled. These are tickets acquired with fake accounts / listed on secondary resale sites.”
‘IHBT’ #? “Approx 7k tickets across approx 2200 orders have been cancelled. These are tickets acquired with fake accounts / listed on secondary resale sites. TM have identified specific locations from secondary postings” #ShowsOfALostWorld2023
— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 31, 2023
The night before, Smith advised ticket buyers not to attempt exploiting loopholes in ticket transfer regulations, and cautioned, “Offering to sell or send account login details to bypass Ticketmaster’s transfer limitations… any and all tickets obtained in this manner will be cancelled, and the original fees paid on those tickets will not be refunded.”
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BEWARE ANOTHER SCALPER SCAM: OFFERING TO SELL/SEND ACCOUNT LOGIN DETAILS TO GET AROUND TM TRANSFER LIMITATIONS… ANY/ALL TICKETS OBTAINED IN THIS WAY WILL BE CANCELED, AND ORIGINAL FEES PAID ON THOSE TICKETS WILL NOT BE REFUNDED… #ShowsOfALostWorld23— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 31, 2023
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…ORIGINAL FEES PAID ON THOSE TICKETS WILL BE DONATED TO @amnesty AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, AND THE TICKETS THEMSELVES WILL BE RESOLD TO FANS #ShowsOfALostWorld23— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 31, 2023
Smith concludes with a post stating, “This ongoing Ticketmaster ‘conversation’ is not happening in isolation… the system that prioritises profit over people is what truly needs to change… x.”
Here is the tweet:
A WEEKEND THOUGHT… THIS ONGOING TM ‘CONVERSATION’ IS NOT TAKING PLACE IN A VACUUM… THE SYSTEM THAT VALUES PROFIT OVER PEOPLE IS REALLY WHAT NEEDS TO BE CHANGED… X
— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 31, 2023
Welldone Robert !
For more on The Cure, see The Cure frontman Robert Smith tweets Side-Line’s Ukrainian charity… on Side-Line.
About The Cure
The Cure formed in Crawley, England, in 1976 around schoolmates Robert Smith (vocals, guitar) and Lol Tolhurst (drums), first performing as Malice, then Easy Cure, before settling on the Cure in 1978 and signing to Chris Parry’s Fiction Records. The band released its debut album, “Three Imaginary Boys,” in 1979. Bassist Simon Gallup joined for “Seventeen Seconds” (1980) and, after a mid-catalog departure, returned in 1984 and has remained in the lineup since. Tolhurst, the band’s last other founding member, moved to keyboards before being dismissed in February 1989 ahead of “Disintegration.”
Key albums include “Faith” (1981), “Pornography” (1982), “The Head on the Door” (1985), “Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me” (1987), “Disintegration” (1989) and the UK number-one “Wish” (1992). Keyboardist Roger O’Donnell joined in 1987 and drummer Jason Cooper in 1994; guitarist Reeves Gabrels joined in 2012. The band’s most recent studio album, “Songs of a Lost World” (Fiction/Capitol), was released on 1 November 2024, their first in sixteen years, reaching number one in the UK and the top five in the US. The Cure won its first Grammy Awards in February 2026, for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Alternative Music Performance.
Founding-era member Perry Bamonte, who joined in 1990, died on 24 December 2025 at age 65. The Cure was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019. The current lineup is Smith, Gallup, O’Donnell, Cooper and Gabrels. In spring 2023, ahead of the band’s North American tour, Robert Smith had roughly 7,000 tickets bought through bots and resale platforms canceled and reissued to fans at face value, and publicly criticized Ticketmaster over dynamic pricing and added fees.
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Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!
