The Cure’s Robert Smith said Ticketmaster would refund fans some money after the rocker invaded the company over what he felt was charging excessive fees.
Smith posted a series of tweets Tuesday and Wednesday, writing in capital letters that the band wanted to keep tickets to their Shows Of A Lost World Tour for a reasonable price.
Before the tickets went on sale, the band had said they have a range of prices at each show and were working with ticketing companies to stop bootleggers, minimize resellers and keep ticket prices at face value.
But some fans took to social media to share photos of service fees, setup fees, and order processing fees that sent prices skyrocketing. One photo showed that the fees alone were more than the $80 the person would pay for four tickets.
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In a separate post Thursday, Smith said he had further discussions about the fees and that Ticketmaster had agreed to issue a refund to fans who had already purchased a ticket. In the future, tickets will have lower fees, he posted.
Ticketmaster has said it doesn’t control fees but does keep a portion for operational costs. In most cases, venues set and honor fees, the company said in a Feb. 7 blog post.
“Similarly, venues have a lot of expenses including hiring staff and dealing with the increasing costs of running shows including building upgrades, insurance, paying suppliers and more. If those fees go down, venues may have to charge artists more overnight rentals, which would likely result in higher ticket prices,” Ticketmaster’s post reads.
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The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
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Ticketmaster has come under heavy scrutiny over the past few months as fans scramble to secure tickets. In November, it canceled general sale tickets for Taylor Swift’s tour because demand for the Verified Fan Sale was too high, resulting in “insufficient ticketing.” Fans sued Live Nation Entertainment, Ticketmaster’s parent company, in December.
After the fiasco, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to examine Ticketmaster’s role in the ticketing industry and questioned whether its 2010 merger with Live Nation unfairly harmed customers.