In an unprecedented move, Ticketmaster Entertainment today publicly apologized to Bruce Springsteen and his fans for rerouting customers to its TicketsNow subsidiary where tickets are more expensive.
Ticketmaster Entertainment CEO Irving Azoff issued the public letter of apology after Springsteen, in a post on his Web site Wednesday, blistered the company for the practice of rerouting customers to TicketsNow after tickets sell out on Ticketmaster. The Boss also criticized the proposed merger Ticketmaster is working on with live entertainment giant Live Nation.
Since buying TicketsNow for $265 million in early 2008, Ticketmaster has been criticized for the practice by fans and ticket brokers, in the U.S. and Canada, because of the alleged appearance that the company is withholding tickets that it then puts up on TicketsNow for much higher premiums. Ticketmaster has denied doing that, but admitted that the practice goes on because artists and their representatives are doing it.
Prior to Springsteen’s Web post, U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey called on the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the relationship between Ticketmaster and TicketsNow over the mix up involving Springsteen ticket sales from the two companies.
Azoff’s apology comes at a critical time for the company because of the proposed merger with Live Nation, which has already drawn opposition from members of the music and ticketing communities. The merger could create an incredibly powerful force in the industry, which could end up being detrimental to fans because the merged companies would control a vast majority of live entertainment assets and could potentially shut out certain venues or artists.
Below is the text of Azoff’s open letter:
An Open Letter of Apology to Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau and the entire Springsteen Tour Team
While we were genuinely trying to do the right thing for fans in providing more choices when the tickets they requested from the primary on-sale were not available, we clearly missed the mark. Fans are confused and angry, which is the opposite of what we hoped to accomplish. We sincerely apologize to Bruce, his organization and, above all, his fans.
We recognize that we need to change our course. We have committed to Bruce and state publicly here that we have taken down all links for Bruce’s shows directing fans from Ticketmaster to TicketsNow. This redirection only occurred as a choice when we could not satisfy fans’ specific search request for primary ticket inventory, but 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.
Specifically, we will not present an option to go to TicketsNow from Ticketmaster without the consent of the artist and the venue, both of whom work together to bring the joy of live entertainment to millions of fans.
If any fans inadvertently purchased tickets in the resale marketplace believing in error they were purchasing from the initial on-sale, we will refund the difference between the actual purchase price and the face price of the ticket. (Please don’t abuse this good faith gesture – we did not give brokers any preferential access to tickets.)
We are committed to helping deliver the most transparent and best live entertainment experience to fans. We will do better going forward.
Sincerely,
Irving Azoff, CEO, Ticketmaster Entertainment
(The image accompanying this story is from BruceSpringsteen.net)
5 Comments
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Thiswas only made so TicketMaster doesn’t get investigated for all the other stuff that they did. I wish Bruce had the Balls to say what other artists are holding back tickets
This is truly sad.
First, Bruce Springsteen’s tour company has control over whether or not whenever tickets are sold out, they get redirected to the ticketsNow website. They elected to not turn this feature off. Deliberately.
Second, only one tickets are actually SOLD OUT on Ticketmaster does the redirect occur. Lots of people restricted their seating requests on Ticketmaster.com and got to ticketsNow’s website.
Third, the ONLY source of tickets is through Ticketmaster.com, or those reserved ahead of time by Bruce’s tour company. HE SUPPLIED THE SCALPED TICKETS. So either someone is lying inside bruce’s tour company, and/or bruce is just the most ignorant of how his organization is run. I’m betting on both.
there will be some initial grumbling, everyone will get used to the TickeMaster Monopoly.
i tried for many of these shows, and received an error message, i was thinking, **oh, maybe they dont have it linked up yet to TICKETSNOW, so they are sending me an error so i will try again for tickets, and sure enough, the link was there the next pull,
read with sarcasm**
There’s got to be someone out there who is smart enough to file a class action suit against Ticketmaster for doing this to all the ticket buyers who want to buy tickets from their site, and then get redirected to TicketsNow in a matter of three seconds after the event went onsale.
Why is this illegal? Amazon.com does it all the time.
In the last 2 years, if you attempted to buy a Wii console through Amazon, if they ran out they only had Wiis from resellers at highly inflated prices. These people bought their Wii from amazon, then turned around and sold it right back on Amazon.com for an inflated price. Some of these people actually worked for places that got Wiis ahead of the general public – this would be places like Target, Best Buy etc.
Ticketmaster.com is no different. The tickets that were sold on ticketsNow were given out by the artist. Ticketmaster does not make tickets out of thin air!
If you want to sue someone, sue the artist.