Ticketmaster – SIDE-LINE https://www.side-line.com Industrial, electro, EBM, post-punk, darkwave news magazine Mon, 03 Apr 2023 17:54:20 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://www.side-line.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/cropped-side-line-logo-png-32x32.png Ticketmaster – SIDE-LINE https://www.side-line.com 32 32 Robert Smith wants to change ‘the system that values profit over people’ after he has 7,000 scalped The Cure tickets canceled https://www.side-line.com/robert-smith-wants-to-change-the-system-that-values-profit-over-people-after-he-has-7000-scalped-the-cure-tickets-canceled/ Mon, 03 Apr 2023 17:54:15 +0000 https://www.side-line.com/?p=42279 The Cure’s Robert Smith continues his ongoing fight against the numerous financial challenges within the...]]>

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 a significant increase in 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.”

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.”

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:

Welldone Robert !

]]> The Cure sickened by Ticketmaster’s ‘sneaky’ ticket pricing https://www.side-line.com/the-cure-sickened-by-ticketmasters-sneaky-ticket-pricing/ Fri, 17 Mar 2023 09:12:02 +0000 https://www.side-line.com/?p=41822 The lead singer of The Cure, Robert Smith, expressed his frustration with Ticketmaster’s mandatory fees...]]>

The lead singer of The Cure, Robert Smith, expressed his frustration with Ticketmaster’s mandatory fees shortly after the company implemented a “verified fan” process on March 15 to distribute tickets for the band’s upcoming American tour. Smith had insisted on the additional layer of security to prevent scalping and inflated ticket prices, but was dismayed to learn that Ticketmaster had included extra fees for buyers. Taking to Twitter, Smith wrote an angry post in all-caps, stating that he was “as sickened as you all are” by the “fees debacle.” He also clarified that the artist had no control over the fees and expressed his confusion over their justification. Smith promised to update fans if he received a satisfactory explanation, adding that tickets were still available, albeit through a slow process.

https://twitter.com/RobertSmith/status/1636188988238077953?s=20

A tweet that went viral highlighted the extent of malpractice by the company, revealing that a fan’s reasonable ticket price of $20 had more than doubled due to processing fees and charges. Despite The Cure’s decision to avoid a demand-driven “dynamic pricing” payment structure for their upcoming tour, and to make all tickets nontransferable, scalpers still managed to acquire a significant number of tickets for the resale market. Although StubHub removed these listings in states without protective laws, Smith expressed his disdain for dynamic pricing, which he deemed a scam. This situation serves as a reminder that the Biden administration is taking steps to diminish the power of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, who hold a substantial monopoly over the concert industry. In February, the White House proposed the Junk Fee Protection Act, which aims to prohibit excessive fees, require disclosure of fees in ticket prices, and mandate disclosure of ticket holdbacks that reduce available supply. Whether it’s a weekday or the weekend, this is an issue that requires attention.

How does dynamic pricing work exactly?

Dynamic pricing in ticket selling refers to the practice of adjusting ticket prices based on supply and demand. Rather than setting a fixed price for a ticket, dynamic pricing algorithms take into account various factors such as venue capacity, historical sales data, and real-time demand to determine the optimal price for a particular event at any given moment. As demand increases, ticket prices rise accordingly, and vice versa. This pricing model is commonly used in industries such as airlines, hotels, and sports teams, and has become increasingly prevalent in the live entertainment industry. However, it has faced criticism from some consumers and artists who argue that it can lead to inflated ticket prices and pricing inequities for fans.

The below meme made by a Norwegian Depeche Mode fan group was published on our Facebook page a while ago and also attacks the outrageous prices.

]]> Live Nation scandal erupts as it’s illegally reselling tickets at ridiculous prices (in Belgium, …) via Seatwave https://www.side-line.com/live-nation-scandal-erupts-as-its-illegally-reselling-tickets-at-ridiculous-prices-in-belgium-via-seatwave/ Wed, 09 Dec 2015 17:47:02 +0000 http://www.side-line.com/?p=3980 This has just hit the Belgian news but has not yet been announced outside Belgium....]]>

Live Nation scandal erupts as it's illegally reselling tickets at ridiculous prices (in Belgium, ...) via Seatwave

This has just hit the Belgian news but has not yet been announced outside Belgium. Until now.

The concert/event giant Live Nation is playing a very dubious role in the resale of concert tickets at ridiculously high prices. And it’s making big money out of the ‘second hand’ market of concert tickets via its own company Seatwave which is operating illegally on the Belgian market. Surprising because Live Nation has been claiming for years in the Belgian press that they don’t condone the resale of concert tickets at higher than the original prices.

Tickets for concerts by such top artists such as Depeche Mode, Muse, and so on are so popular that they usually sell for double or even ten times the official price and that via a very popular website which Ticketmaster (which merged with Live Nation in 2009) owns: Seatwave. Part of those excessive profits simply disappears into the deep pockets of Live Nation, which is often also organizing the event themselves. In short, they sell a same ticket 2 times and with increasing profits. Questions are also being raised now if Live Nation itself is manipulating the normal ticket sales in order to be able to sell tickets via Seatwave instead.

muse

The whole is illegal in Belgium (and various other countries). Reselling tickets at a higher price than the original sale price is strictly prohibited by law in Belgium and this since October 1 2013. And that’s not only for Belgian companies. The law literally says: “The foreign retailers operating in the Belgian market must comply with Belgian law.”

So although Live Nation was cunning enough to register a .be domain name and operates from the Netherlands where reselling tickets is still ok, they are operating in a very illegal way in Belgium using the .be domain. One of the biggest ticket companies in Belgium, Belgian Tele Ticket Service, is even blacklisting Seatwave because it considers it to be a very shady company operating illegally on the Belgian market. Also the official Belgian federal institution FPS Economy has blacklisted Seatwave.

about

The Seatwave website is clearly trying to misinform web visitors by not mentioning that it is a Live Nation / Ticketmaster owned website. Instead it’s ‘about us’ section reads that “Seatwave is opgericht door een groepje mensen die van mening zijn dat het gewoon simpel en veilig moet zijn om aan tickets te komen. We zijn blij dat je bij ons terecht bent gekomen en streven ernaar aan al je verwachtingen te voldoen.” (Eng. “Seatwave was created by a group of people who believe that it just has to be simple and safe to get tickets. We are glad you found us and strive to meet all your expectations.”) It looks like a fun amateur initiative, but no word of Ticketmaster or Live Nation who actually run the show, that fact is only mentioned in the footer in grey (on purpose to not look too visible).

As a result many people have now filed a complaint with the authorities against Seatwave  operating on the Belgian market. The story will be continued, there is no doubt about that.

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