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The Cure secure refunds for fans following Ticketmaster fees controversy
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 17 March 2023
Ticketmaster has agreed to partially refund ticketing fees paid by Cure fans who bought tickets for the band’s upcoming US tour through the Live Nation company’s Verified Fan platform. This follows a backlash after some fans were charged fees in excess of the face value of the tickets.
“Ticketmaster have agreed with us that many of the fees being charged are unduly high”, tweeted Cure frontman Robert Smith last night. As “a gesture of goodwill”, he went on, anyone who purchased the lowest price tickets will receive a $10 refund per ticket, while anyone else who purchased through the Verified Fan system will receive $5 per ticket.
“If you already bought a ticket you will get an automatic refund”, he wrote. “All tickets [going on general] sale [on Friday] will incur lower fees”.
The quick resolution to this story comes, presumably, as Ticketmaster is keen to avoid further controversy about its ticket selling practices. There have been numerous complaints about various aspects of the company’s operations in recent months, not least surrounding the pre-sale of Taylor Swift’s US tour tickets, which sparked a hearing in US Congress.
Earlier this week, Smith criticised Ticketmaster for the high fees on the band’s tickets. He said that they had chosen to use Verified Fan in order to reduce the number of tickets that would make it to resale platforms at higher prices. However, he added, he was “sickened” by the fees being charged by Ticketmaster and had “been asking [the company] how they are justified”.
This is, of course, an isolated case, and it seems unlikely it will spark a more general overhaul of the fees charged by Ticketmaster. Although if more big name artists take Smith’s lead, perhaps it could. That said, some would argue that if the ticketing platforms reduced their fees, inevitably the actual ticket prices would increase.
