Everyone is thrilled about The Cure’s upcoming tour. The band hasn’t toured North America since 2016! That’s a long time to wait for them to return. Which is why fans have been dying for the chance to attend. Especially since frontman Robert Smith wanted to be fair to fans and keep ticket prices affordable, so any and all could have the chance to attend. But all was not well or right with Ticketmaster, as the ticket retailer seemed to want to supplement the lower ticket prices with exorbitant add-on fees. Dismayed by the price gouging, Smith has gotten Ticketmaster to at least partially refund attendees.
Ticketmaster has a bad habit of using add-on fees as “necessary” for the best experience for patrons. But most of the time it’s for ridiculous things like facility charges, service fees and unwanted vouchers for venues. Sometimes with the option to opt out of certain ones. But for The Cure’s concert, Ticketmaster slapped customers with massive fees on top of a mere $20 ticket.
What If Smith Hadn’t Intervened?
One such customer tweeted their dismay when a set of four tickets — that’s roughly $80 — came out to $172.10 due to additional fees. A service fee of almost 12 dollars per ticket, and a facility charge of 10 per. That’s a price increase of 115%. More than just price gouging, that’s straight up robbery.
Luckily for fans, Smith wasn’t happy about it, either. And after some significant conversation with Ticketmaster, the ticket-seller admitted to the prices being “excessively high.”
So, they’ve offered patrons a $10 refund per ticket for all Verified Fan accounts with Lowest Ticket Price transactions, and a five dollar refund for all other ticket purchases. And this applies to all shows. Fans who have already purchased tickets will be automatically refunded and future ticket sale prices have been dropped. Though it does beg the question as to whether they would have done anything if one of the primary band members hadn’t taken them to task. Given how much Ticketmaster loves their add-ons, we’re not so sure.
