The Boss speaks out against ticket monopoly scam
Feb 5, 2009
Bruce Springsteen has angrily spoken out against ticketing giant Ticketmaster after fans were redirected to a ‘scalper’ site owned by the corporation.
Tickets are sold on the site TicketsNow by licensed brokers, as well as individual sellers, and all tickets are 100% authentic.The debacle with
Springsteen began when consumers attempting to buy tickets on Monday (February 2) for two of his shows were directed to the more expensive tickets sold on TicketsNow, almost immediately after the tickets went on sale. The tickets listed on TicketsNow were three or four times the price.
Springsteen responded to the situation in a letter in which he assured fans that he was as angry as they were about the scam.
He said: "We were as confused as you were, as we were given no advance notice of the major changes in the Ticketmaster-TicketsNow world. (Bear in mind that we are not clients of any ticketing company, and that all those arrangements are between venues and ticketing companies).
"Last Monday, we were informed that Ticketmaster was redirecting your log-in requests for tickets at face value, to their secondary site TicketsNow, which specializes in up-selling tickets at above face value. They did this even when other seats remained available at face value. We condemn this practice...
Ticketmaster issued an open letter of apology to Springsteen and his team, saying it was "genuinely trying to do the right thing for fans in providing more choices when the tickets they requested from the primary onsale were not available."
The company says it "clearly missed the mark" and "to make sure there is no misunderstanding in the future, we also publicly state that we will never again link to TicketsNow in a manner that can possibly create any confusion during a high-demand on-sale".
By
NME.COM New York Staff.
