Concert fans hit Ticketmaster with more accusations of improper behaviour yesterday after reports surfaced that the ticket giant's wholly owned subsidiary TicketsNow was selling seats to upcoming Leonard Cohen shows at wildly inflated prices even before Ticketmaster offered them for sale to the public.
TicketsNow halted the sales after hearing of them on Tuesday afternoon. Tickets to the general public go on sale next Monday.
Yesterday, a Ticketmaster spokesman suggested the Cohen seats on TicketsNow were speculative listings offered by individuals or brokers trying to sell tickets in the hope that they could purchase and flip them once they went on sale.
The CEO of Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, where Cohen will play May 19, said he was upset by the situation, but pleased with Ticketmaster's response.
"We've been pretty clear to them that we expect that they take pretty quick action to make sure it doesn't happen again," said Duncan Gillespie.
The flap came only weeks after Ticketmaster pledged it would scuttle the practice, amid complaints that the company was directing ticket buyers to TicketsNow, where service charges sometimes reach more than four times the fees on its main site. Source.
