Olivia Dean, the English soul-pop star whose single “Man I Need” recently became a Top 5 hit in the US, publicly called out Ticketmaster last week when she discovered that tickets to her summer North American tour were priced with some pretty egregious markups. “The prices at which you’re allowing tickets to be re-sold is vile and completely against our wishes,” Dean wrote in her Instagram stories directed to Ticketmaster. “Live music should be affordable and accessible and we need to find a new way of making that possible.” Her call-outs worked, and Ticketmaster capped resale prices for Dean’s tour at face value. Now, Ticketmaster and AXS are also refunding the difference to ticket buyers who already paid over face value.
Ticketmaster and AXS do give artists the ability to cap ticket resale prices, as Hayley Williams and Chappell Roan have both done recently, but it sounds like that didn’t go into effect when Dean’s tour first went on presale. (What’s more, when one fan pointed out that a primary presale ticket was going for $753.45 on Ticketmaster, the company responded that it was a “typo” and the price was supposed to be $53.45.) Last night, Dean updated fans with this message on her Instagram story:
After many conversations with my team, Ticketmaster and AXS have agreed to refund the difference to anyone who has paid over face value for a ticket and will cap all future ticket resale prices to face value for the North American run of the tour
Every artist and their team should be granted the option to cap re-sale at face value ahead of on sale, to keep the live music space accessible for all
The secondary ticket market is an exploitative and unregulated space and we as an industry have a responsibility to protect people and our community
Thank you for your patience and I’m looking forward to seeing all you real humans at the show
STOP THE BOTS
Ticketmaster shared a post of their own confirming the update, saying that “refunds will be processed by Dec. 10 and reflect the difference between the original price set by the tour and the price charged by the individual reseller.” See both posts below.
