Travel advisory for any demons in our studying viewers tonight, as hell has reportedly frozen over, with Rolling Stone reporting this night that Ticketmaster is giving cash again to shoppers. The ticketing firm—which has come below hearth once more recently for each instability in its ticketing system, in addition to ticketing charges that typically cost extra than the precise tickets in query—is reportedly providing partial refunds to clients who purchased tickets for an upcoming tour by The Cure.
News of the refunds was introduced by Cure frontman Robert Smith, who’s been very vocal on social media over his unhappiness about working with Ticketmaster, particularly because the band has apparently been attempting to maneuver heaven and earth not to gouge its followers with this newest tour. That contains ignoring Ticketmaster’s “dynamic pricing plan,” which Smith referred to as a “rip-off,” and setting a value level of simply $20 for some seats—solely to have Ticketmaster’s hooked up charges greater than double the value.
Tonight, Smith introduced that Ticketmaster has agreed to provide $10 again to anybody who purchased seats at that lowest value level; in the meantime, the corporate can also be issuing “A $5 ticket refund to all verified fan accounts for all different ticket value transactions, for all Cure exhibits in any respect venues.” (Not enormous quantities, however nonetheless higher optics than no refund in any respect.) Smith, who beforehand mentioned he was sickened on the firm’s habits, referred to as the refunds a “goodwill” gesture on Ticketmaster’s half.
And they actually do want some goodwill in the meanwhile: Anger concerning the Cure tickets—to say nothing of the Taylor Swift ticketing debacle from final yr—has swelled always-active anti-Ticketmaster sentiment. Meanwhile, the Department Of Justice remains to be wanting into the corporate from an antibelief standpoint, one thing it’s been getting threatened with for just about the whole lot of the decade-plus because it merged with venue proprietor Live Nation again in 2010.
