Tour Dates — March 16, 2023 at 9:07 am

The Cure’s Robert Smith “sickened” by ticket fees, says Verified Fan system “far from perfect”


The Cure

Tickets went on sale Wednesday for The Cure’s much-anticipated North American tour via a presale managed under Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan system, a rocky experience that left both fans and frontman Robert Smith frustrated by high fees and a lack of access.

Smith wrote two Twitter threads in the last couple days about the experience — see them both in full below — venting his own frustration and detailing the band’s efforts to keep tickets out of the hands of scalpers and off the resale market by using Verified Fan, which he acknowledged “is a far from perfect system.”

“I am just as sickened as you all are by today’s Ticketmaster ‘fees’ debacle,” he wrote in his typical all-caps. “To be very clear: The artist has no way to limit them. I have been asking how they are justified.”

That ire was no doubt fueled by a viral tweet that showed tickets for one of the band’s North American shows had been priced as low as $20 apiece, but the purchase of four of them — for a total of $80 — was accompanied by an additional $92.10 in fees, raising the per-ticket price to $43.

For that particular purchase, the fees exceeded the cost of the tickets — though it should be noted that it’s not just Ticketmaster assessing the fees; nearly half of the fees in this case were charged by the venue. Of course, many venues are owned by Live Nation, which merged with Ticketmaster in 2010.

 

 

Fans took to social media to complain about the Verified Fan process, which required Ticketmaster users to preregister for the chance to buy tickets during the presale. Some were sent presale codes in advance that allowed them to get in line, others received codes after the tickets already had gone on sale. And some registered Verified Fan users who were waitlisted never got presale codes at all.

It’s not clear how many of the shows have sold out since only Verified Fan users with codes can access the presales. Smith tweeted that all seats would be made available during the presale. The general on-sales are scheduled for Friday morning, though it’s possible there won’t be tickets left for some shows.

Smith previously had detailed the lengths The Cure were going to keep tickets affordable and to thwart scalpers, including by not using dynamic pricing — “It is a greedy scam — and all artists have the choice not to participate” — and barring the transfer of electronic tickets or their resale at prices above face value, though that’s not possible in New York, Illinois and Colorado, where, according to Ticketmaster, “state law prohibits artists from restricting resale.”

On Wednesday night, Smith tweeted that he’d been informed reseller StubHub had pulled all listings except in New York, Chicago and Denver, or “cities in states that have laws protecting scalpers.”

He added that “there are still tickets available — it’s just a very slow process.”

Smith has encouraged fans in those states who need to resell their tickets to use face value exchanges like twickets.live and cashortrade.org.

Below, read Robert Smith’s tweets about ticket sales and check out The Cure’s tour dates

 

Thread #1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thread #2

 

 

 

The Cure 2023 tour dates

May 10: New Orleans, LA — Smoothie King Center
May 12: Houston, TX — Toyota Center
May 13: Dallas, TX — Dos Equis Pavilion
May 14: Austin, TX — Moody Center
May 16: Albuquerque, NM — Isleta Amphitheater
May 18: Phoenix, AZ — Desert Diamond Arena
May 20: San Diego, CA — NICU Amphitheatre
May 23: Los Angeles, CA — Hollywood Bowl
May 24: Los Angeles, CA — Hollywood Bowl
May 25: Los Angeles, CA — Hollywood Bowl
May 27: San Francisco, CA — Shoreline Amphitheatre
June 1: Seattle, WA — Climate Pledge Arena
June 2: Vancouver, BC — Rogers Arena
June 4: Salt Lake City, UT — Vivint Smart Home Arena
June 6: Denver, CO — Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre
June 8: Minneapolis St. Paul, MN — Xcel Energy Center
June 10: Chicago, IL — United Center
June 11: Cleveland, OH — Blossom Music Center
June 13: Detroit, MI — Pine Knob Music Theatre
June 14: Toronto, ON — Budweiser Stage
June 16: Montreal, QC — Bell Centre
June 18: Boston, MA — Xfinity Center
June 20: New York, NY — Madison Square Garden
June 21: New York, NY — Madison Square Garden
June 22: New York, NY — Madison Square Garden
June 24: Philadelphia, PA — Wells Fargo Center
June 25: Columbia, MD — Merriweather Post Pavilion
June 27: Atlanta, GA — State Farm Arena
June 29: Tampa, FL — Amalie Arena
July 1: Miami, FL — Miami-Dade Arena

 

PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS


 




 

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One Comment

  1. Jon
    March 16, 2023 at 1:08 pm  ·  Reply

    I’m glad Smith is trying to tangle with TM and deal with the issue, but I’m on the waitlist and just feel like I’m in limbo anxiously waiting for updates, not even knowing if the system is working at all.

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