After pressure from The Cure’s Robert Smith, Ticketmaster will be giving a partial refund to those who bought tickets for their recently announced US tour. Smith made this announcement last night after he stated that he was “sickened” by Ticketmaster’s “unduly high fees.”
Before the tickets went on sale, The Cure had gone to great lengths to ensure that fans were paying face value for the tickets, refusing to use platinum or dynamic pricing and making their tickets non-transferrable so that scalpers couldn’t easily hike prices. Earlier in the week, Smith announced that he had only decided to partner with Ticketmaster for their upcoming US tour as they believed the platform would be able to combat scalpers and “try to get tickets into the hands of fans at a fair price.“
However, fans on Twitter shared screen shots of ticketing fees that were even higher than the price of the tickets themselves.
Later that day Smith wrote,
“After further conversation, Ticketmaster have agreed with us that many of the fees being charged are unduly high, and as a gesture of goodwill have offered a $10 per ticket refund to all verified fan accounts for Lowest Ticket Price ..and £5 on all verified fan accounts……all tickets on sale tomorrow will incur lower fees.”
With fans responding “We love you Robert” , “Thanks for Fighting” and “Robert 1- Ticketmaster 0″
In a series of Tweets throughout the day, Smith expressed his distain at ‘the scalpers’ as well as dynamic pricing saying that it was a ‘scam.‘
Tim Burgess commented saying “Robert Smith wanted to keep ticket prices at a reasonable level for fans on the upcoming North American Tour Dates. Of course Ticketmaster absolutely rinsed them with ridiculous extra charges. WTF even is a service free or a facility charge or processing fee??”
After praise from fans and fellow musicians alike, Smith said that he that he would let fans know “what shows have tickets left for sale” when he had more information, signing off with, ‘ONWARDS X.’