Robert Smith on ticketing strategy for The Cure’s North American tour: “It is a far from perfect system”

nme.com:

The Cure‘s Robert Smith has elaborated on the band’s decision to partner with Ticketmaster for the “non-transferable” ticketing strategy for their upcoming North American tour.On March 10, The Cure announced that tickets to their North American tour would not be transferable in order to minimise “resale and keep prices at face value”.

Smith has since taken to Twitter to shed light on the ticketing strategy for the tour, first announcing on Wednesday (March 15) that Ticketmaster had informed the band that “ALL tickets for The Cure Shows Of A Lost World Tour will be made available during tomorrow’s Verified Fan Sale”.Smith then thanked fans for their support before going on to acknowledge “real problems” with the ticketing system.

He clarified that the band had “final say” in the tour’s ticket price as they “didn’t want those prices instantly and horribly distorted by resale,” adding that they were told “in North America the resale business is a multi-billion [dollar] industry”.WE HAD FINAL SAY IN ALL OUR TICKET PRICING FOR THIS UPCOMING TOUR, AND DIDN’T WANT THOSE PRICES INSTANTLY AND HORRIBLY DISTORTED BY RESALE – WE WERE TOLD "In North America the resale business is a multi-billion $ industry.— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 15, 2023The band were told, Smith said, that Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan platform would reduce scalping by 80 per cent and that the platform had been used “more than 400 times to quality buyers”.“We were convinced that Ticketmaster’s ‘Verified Fan Page’ and ‘Face Value Ticket Exchange’ ideas could help us fight the scalpers,” Smith wrote.

The Cure did not agree to the system’s Dynamic Pricing, Price Surging and Platinum Ticket offerings, he added, “because it is itself a bit of a scam”, alluding.