Ticketmaster has given fans of Olivia Dean partial refunds after the British singer condemned ticketing companies for allowing touts to relist tickets for her North American tour at more than 14 times their face value.
After the tour sold out in minutes on 21 November and tickets appeared on resale sites at prices in excess of $1,000, Dean addressed the major ticketing companies on Instagram: “@Ticketmaster @Livenation @AEGPresents you are providing a disgusting service,” she wrote. “The prices at which you’re allowing tickets to be re-sold is vile and completely against our wishes. Live music should be affordable and accessible and we need to find a new way of making that possible. BE BETTER.”
Ticketmaster initially replied: “We support artists’ ability to set the terms of how their tickets are sold and resold. @OliviaDeano, we will cap resale prices on our site at face value and hope other resale sites will follow.”
The ticketing company subsequently said it is in the process of “refunding fans for any markup they already paid to resellers on Ticketmaster”.
In a statement, Michael Rapino, CEO of Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation Entertainment, said: “We share Olivia’s desire to keep live music accessible and ensure fans have the best access to affordable tickets. While we can’t require other marketplaces to honour artists’ resale preferences, we echo Olivia’s call to ‘do better’ and have taken steps to lead by example.”
Dean subsequently posted on Instagram, in part addressing her fellow artists: “Touts steal from artists and they steal from fans. They create inequality and hysteria. I am lucky to have had an education about the complexities and corruption of ticketing from @dicefm and will always choose to partner with them where we can. But know that you have power with other partners.
“Capping resale at face value is your right and we have a duty to encourage a fair resale market. We are often made to feel we don’t have a choice but there is always space to ask why and it is always your right to say no!”
The UK government recently confirmed that it would make it illegal for tickets to live entertainment and sport events to be resold for more than their original cost, after lobbying from acts including Coldplay and Dua Lipa.
Dean is the UK’s biggest breakout artist of the year. She has four singles in the UK Top 20 – chart rules only allow three as a solo artist, but one of them, Rein Me In, is a duet with Sam Fender. Her second album, The Art of Loving, has also spent eight weeks in the Top 5 after debuting at No 1.
