The Cure has top grossing tour and gives the middle finger to Ticketmaster’s price game
In the past few months we often documented how the lead singer of The Cure, Robert Smith, expressed his frustration with Ticketmaster’s mandatory fees shortly after the company implemented a “verified fan” process on March 15 to distribute tickets for the band’s American tour.
The additional layer of security was there to prevent scalping and inflated ticket prices. Ticketmaster in return included extra fees for buyers. Smith was able to convince Ticketmaster to provide modest refunds to verified ticket buyers due to the “excessively high” service fees and thus put a halt to the price gaming.
It’s not the first time Ticketmaster is doing ‘funny things’. Ticketmaster’s ticket resale scheme, also known as the Verified Resale program, allows anyone to sell tickets on their platform at any price they choose. This means resellers can buy tickets in bulk and resell them on Ticketmaster’s site, often at prices much higher than the original face value.
Maybe as a result of protecting fans’ interests, the “Shows of a Lost World Tour” grossed $37.5 million with over half a million tickets sold: 547,000 to be exact.
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