Ticketmaster are charging more in fees than The Cure do for their tickets
After The Cure kept prices low for their North American tour, one fan claimed on social media that added charges from Ticketmaster cost them more than each ticket they purchased.
The Cure announced their low-pricing plan on March 10th, and also shared their anti-tout policy. Tickets for the North American leg of their tour aren’t transferable which is aimed at limiting resale and to “keep prices at face value”. In the aftermath, singer Robert Smith took to Twitter to elaborate on the band’s ticketing strategy, and said, “ALL tickets for The Cure Shows Of A Lost World Tour will be made available during tomorrow’s Verified Fan Sale”.
He added: “We know it’s a far from perfect system,” Smith concluded, “But the reality is that if there aren’t enough tickets on sale, a number of fans are going to miss out whatever system we use; at least this one tries to get tickets into the hands of fans at a fair price”.
While The Cure did everything they could to reduce the price of tickets on their side, unfortunately, they didn’t consider the hidden charges which are implemented by Ticketmaster. A Twitter user has gone viral for sharing a screenshot of their receipt with the caption: “the cure deliberately kept ticket prices low and @Ticketmaster was like “lol bet” and charges more in fees than the band is for the actual show”.
The person claimed to pay for four tickets at $20 each, but they all came with an $11.65 service charge, and a $10 facility charge, taking the total above the ticket price. While Smith is yet to comment on the Ticketmaster fees, he did write of the company’s surge pricing: “It is a greedy scam – and all artists who have the choice not to participate… if no artists participated, it would cease to exist x”.
Last year, Bruce Springsteen faced criticism after tickets were priced as high as $5,000 on Ticketmaster for his forthcoming tour. In his defence, Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau said: “In pricing tickets for this tour, we looked carefully at what our peers have been doing. We chose prices that are lower than some and on par with others. Regardless of the commentary about a modest number of tickets costing $1,000 or more, our true average ticket price has been in the mid-$200 range. I believe that in today’s environment, that is a fair price to see someone universally regarded as among the very greatest artists of his generation.”
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