The Cure Want To Block Scalpers And Stop Dynamically Priced Tickets, But Can They?
You have probably heard the news: The Cure have announced their first North American tour in seven years, 30 shows across the US including three dates at the Hollywood Bowl in May and three dates at the Madison Square Garden in June. I saw them at Cruel World before the pandemic and they lived up to their legend.
So, is it another series of overpriced concerts? According to the band’s website, they are working on pleasing the fans: “We have priced tickets to benefit fans, and our efforts to block scalpers and limit inflated resale prices are being supported by our ticketing partners.” The press release even added that “apart from a few Hollywood Bowl charity seats, there will be no platinum or dynamically priced tickets on this tour.”
Does it mean I could get a pit ticket at a decent price if I sign up for Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan ahead of the on-sale dates? Fans (me included) have been frustrated by the outrageous ticket prices lately. Some tickets for Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday at the Bowl are currently on sale for $13,000, while a GA (standing only) for Bruce Springsteen at the Kia Forum is between $800-900!
If Robert Smith wants to break this insanity, he will have all my admiration and recognition. No Platinum sales? Good! Lately, every concert in a large venue has at least 8 different options: 5 or 6 different presales, a Citi card member preferred sale, an official platinum sale, a VIP package sale, it goes on and on… Why is it so difficult to buy a concert ticket these days? If the Cure can prove that this can be done, they will put everyone else to shame.
However, can they stop the bots from reselling tickets at expensive prices? I don’t think so. If you go on Vividseats, they already have seats for sale in almost every section of the Hollywood Bowl for each one of the 3 nights. StubHub has them too. Meanwhile, the tickets go on sale on March 15 according to Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan. Why are these reselling sites allowed to sell tickets before the official fan-verified sale? What does it mean? It means that despite the Cure’s good intentions, this is the same old game. Vividseats, Stubhub and Ticketmaster are all the same business and there will be dynamically priced tickets as usual… Some tickets are already listed at $1700! So much for limiting inflated resale prices.
The Cure has posted an update this morning, acknowledging the difficulty of the process because of the laws protecting scalpers in certain states – they could have added California since tickets are already sold on reselling sites! At this point, all they can do is beg fans to ignore scalpers:
