The Cure’s Robert Smith is fed up with the problems at Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan presale system, that The Cure made use of for their upcoming North American tour, attempting to keep tickets affordable for fans.
Smith warned fans on Monday, March 13th against buying tickets from insanely priced sammers off of secondary market websites. When laying out their ticket policy for the tour, The Cure stated that tickets would not be transferable and also opted out of platinum and dynamically priced tickets.
Smith again returned to Twitter on Tuesday night to talk about the overwhelming demand for the Ticketmaster Verified Fan Sale and explained their decision for using the platform. Smith wrote, “We were CONVINCED THAT TICKETMASTER’S ‘Verified Fan Page’ AND ‘Face Value Ticket Exchange’ IDEAS COULD HELP US FIGHT THE SCALPERS… WE KNOW IT IS A FAR FROM PERFECT SYSTEM — BUT THE REALITY IS THAT IF THERE AREN’T ENOUGH TICKETS ON SALE, A NUMBER OF FANS ARE GOING TO MISS OUT WHATEVER SYSTEM WE USE; AT LEAST THIS ONE TRIES TO GET TICKETS INTO THE HANDS OF FANS AT A FAIR PRICE… AND/OR WE SHOULD PLAY MORE/BIGGER SHOWS? HA!!! ONWARDS…”
He also explained why they decided to not do platinum tickets and dynamically priced tickets saying, “I HAD A SEPARATE CONVERSATION ABOUT ‘PLATINUM’, TO SEE IF I HAD MISUNDERSTOOD SOMETHING… BUT I HADN’T! IT IS A GREEDY SCAM — AND ALL ARTISTS HAVE THE CHOICE NOT TO PARTICIPATE… IF NO ARTISTS PARTICIPATED, IT WOULD CEASE TO EXIST.”
He concluded his Tweeting rampage by saying, “I AM AS SICKENED AS YOU ALL ARE BY TODAY’S TICKETMASTER ‘FEES’ DEBACLE. 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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