Ticketmaster will refund some fees paid by Cure fans

Concerts

Some fans who bought tickets for the English band’s upcoming tour this week paid more for the fees than for the tickets themselves.

Fans of The Cure who purchased tickets to the English post-punk band’s upcoming tour through Ticketmaster’s “verified fan” system earlier this week will receive a partial refund of some of the transaction fees they paid, the Cure says. leader of the group, Robert Smith.

The refunds come after controversy erupted Wednesday when some fans who bought tickets for the band’s upcoming “Shows of a Lost World Tour,” which makes a stop at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield on June 18, ended up paying more on “service,” “facilities” and “order processing” fees than for the tickets themselves.

TO viral tweet showing a transaction that listed a single ticket at $20, but the fees per ticket were over $21. What had been a total of $80 for four tickets ended up having a total charge of $172.

Smith expressed his outrage, post on twitter that he was “grossed out” by the fee situation and that music artists have no way of limiting additional charges.

However, on Thursday night, Smith said in a series of tweets that he was able to speak with the ticket seller, who “agreed with us that many of the fees being charged are unduly high.”

“As a gesture of goodwill, [Ticketmaster has] offered a $10 rebate per ticket to all verified fan accounts for Lowest Ticket Price (‘LTP’) transactions and a $5 rebate per ticket to all verified fan accounts for all other LTP transactions. tickets, to all Cure shows at all venues,” Smith wrote. .

Fans who have already purchased tickets will receive an automatic refund, while tickets sold during Friday’s scheduled general sale will incur lower fees, Smith wrote.

The Cure had intentionally set ticket prices at affordable prices in an attempt to help fans, as ticket prices for other artists have skyrocketed through Ticketmaster’s platform over the past year.

The company has faced criticism as ticket prices for some acts, including Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift, have hit the thousands through its controversial “dynamic pricing” or “price gouging” model.

Smith, earlier this week, called the practice a “greedy scam”.

The band, he said, was also convinced that by using Ticketmaster’s “verified fans” system, where fans pre-register for a chance to receive a code to access ticket sales, they could better fight scalpers. .

“We want the tour to be affordable for all fans, and we have a very wide (and we think very fair) price range on each show,” the group wrote in a March 10 post on Twitter. “Our ticketing partners have agreed to help us keep scalpers from getting in the way.”