Neil Young (pictured) has said that concert tours “are no longer fun” due to extortionate ticket prices and high fees from Ticketmaster.
The Canadian-American artist wrote on his website: “It’s over. The old days are gone. I get letters blaming me for $3,000.00 tickets for a benefit I am doing. That money does not go to me or the benefit. Artists have to worry about ripped off fans blaming them for Ticketmaster add-ons and scalpers.
“Concert tours are no longer fun. Concert tours not what they were.”
Young then shared an article about The Cure’s Robert Smith and his recent battle with high ticket fees.
Smith had been vocal about the fees charged by Ticketmaster on tickets for the English band’s upcoming tour dates in the US. The Cure had said they were trying to keep ticket prices low, and that in many locations, tickets would be made non-transferable to help keep scalpers at bay.
However, once fans got to the end of their order for the ‘The Shows of a Lost Word’ tour, they realised they were being charged more than the ticket price in fees by Ticketmaster.
Smith said he was “sickened” by these fees, which saw some customers purchase tickets at $20 each (£17/€19) before paying a service charge of $11.65, a facility charge of $10 and an order processing fee of $5.50.
The Cure frontman also called Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing service, ‘Platinum tickets’, a “greedy scam”.
The ticketing company then said it would partially refund customers that had paid high ticket fees, after pressure from Smith.
He said at the time: “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 (‘LTP’) transactions…
“And a $5 per ticket refund to all verified fan accounts for all other ticket price transactions, for all Cure shows at all venues; if you already bought a ticket you will get an automatic refund; all tickets on sale tomorrow will incur lower fees.”
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