Robert Smith has spoken out about predatory ticketing practices for The Cure's North American tour last year, recalling his goals of keeping tickets low-cost.
“It was one of those moments where I thought, 'No, I'm not going to let this go,'” he told the New York Times in an interview on Friday. “And so I didn't.”
Smith's strategy remains the gold standard for how artists can keep concert tickets at humane prices. He used fan-to-fan ticket trading to make it harder for scalpers to sell tickets at huge prices and refused to use the famous dynamic pricing that artists like Bruce Springsteen and Oasis used to raise prices instead, calling This methodology is a “greed-driven scam.”
“But most artists hide behind management,” Smith said earlier this month. «Oh, we didn't know, they say. Everyone knows it. If they say they don't know, they're either fucking stupid or lying.”
However, the sale had angered fans once again. Shortly after the tickets went on sale, Ticketmaster's fees, which in some cases were more expensive than the tickets themselves, became the focus of criticism. Smith wrote at the time that he was “disgusted” and had asked Ticketmaster to justify how this happened. The next day the company issued partial refunds.
In a statement to the Times, Ticketmaster said the Cure's shows were atypical, as they were much cheaper than others: “To the Cure's credit, their ticket prices were so much lower than usual that even the smallest commissions established by the locals made no sense. We stepped in to help fans by refunding fees,” Ticketmaster said. «And since then, we have actively monitored commissions on low-price tickets. Some venues reduce commissions, others leave them as they are and in some cases Ticketmaster has stepped in to cover part of them.”
If there's anything Smith seems to want more from other artists, it's for them to step up, even on their own. “People are terrified of upsetting Live Nation and Ticketmaster,” Smith said. “It's really bizarre, actually, because the power of the artist is the ultimate power.”
