The Cure’s frontman Robert Smith is speaking out after learning that some of the seats for his upcoming tour dates were costing fans more than double the base price due to Ticketmaster’s added fees.
As the company remains under fire by artists, concertgoers, and the federal government, Smith stepped in this week to share his anger over-inflated ticket costs after fans tweeted about their outrageous final bills, and he promised to step in and do anything he could to help.
“I AM AS SICKENED AS YOU ALL ARE BY TODAY’S TICKETMASTER ‘FEES’ DEBACLE,” he wrote on Twitter on March 15. ” TO BE VERY CLEAR: THE ARTIST HAS NO WAY TO LIMIT THEM. I HAVE BEEN ASKING HOW THEY ARE JUSTIFIED. IF I GET ANYTHING COHERENT BY WAY OF AN ANSWER I WILL LET YOU ALL KNOW. X.”
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After Smith made his initial comment, one The Cure fan responded by posting a photo of his Ticketmaster checkout screen. It showed that he bought four seats for $20, but the initial $80 jumped to over $172 after a service fee, facility charge, order processing fee, and mobile delivery fee.
“So @thecure and @RobertSmith wanted to keep ticket prices at a reasonable level for fans on their upcoming North American tour dates. Of course, @Ticketmaster absolutely rinsed them with ridiculous extra charges,” he wrote. “Wtf even is a service fee or a facility charge or processing fee??”
The Cure Convinced Ticketmaster to Issue Small Refunds to Purchasers
Not surprisingly, Smith was already in front of the ordeal. Knowing that there have been issues with ticket sales in the recent past, The Cure worked with Ticketmaster to ensure purchases were affordable and that fans wouldn’t see an inflated cost due to scalping.
In an earlier Tweet, he wrote that the band had “the final say” in the initial pricing, and they stopped scalpers from inflating the costs by making all tickets non-transferable. So when Smith saw that people were still paying exorbitant prices, he acted quickly and actually got some results.
On Thursday, he notified his followers that he managed to score refunds for everyone who had already purchased their tickets, and he promised that all future sales would drop accordingly.
After speaking with Ticketmaster, the company “agreed” that the tacked-on fees were “unduly high.” so they issued a “$10 per ticket refund to all verified fan accounts for the lowest ticket price.” All other tickets earned a $5 refund. Each show going forward will also come with lower fees.
