Ticketmaster will give Cure fans a refund after Robert Smith said he was 'sickened' by its additional charges and demanded an explanation
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- Ticketmaster will refund "unduly high" fees to Cure fans following complaints from Robert Smith.
- The singer told fans Thursday he was as "sickened" as they were about the additional charges.
- Smith later tweeted that fans who bought the cheapest tickets would get $10 refunds.
Ticketmaster will refund "unduly high" fees to Cure fans after lead singer Robert Smith said he was "sickened" by the charges and demanded an explanation.
Smith tweeted Thursday: "I am as sickened as you all are by today's Ticketmaster 'fees' debacle."
The singer, who routinely tweets in capital letters, said that while artists had no say about its additional charges, he would ask if they could be "justified."
—ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 16, 2023
Smith posted an update later Thursday: "After further conversation, Ticketmaster have agreed with us that many of the fees being charged are unduly high, and as a gesture of goodwill have offered a $10 per ticket refund to all verified fan accounts for lowest ticket price ('ltp') transactions."
The platform will also give an automatic $5 refund per ticket for those who paid more to see any show on the US tour, Smith added.
Smith said Wednesday that the band had chosen to use Ticketmaster to avoid scalping but didn't want its dynamic pricing or Platinum ticket schemes.
Those schemes have been used by other performers including Taylor Swift, with some tickets selling for thousands of dollars. Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation, apologized to Swift and her fans in November after a chaotic initial rollout of tickets for her The Eras tour.
The Cure priced some of its tickets as low as $20. But screenshots of Ticketmaster shopping baskets shared on Twitter showed additional fees that came to just over $47: a "service fee" of $11.65, a "facility charge" of $10, and an overall order processing fee of $5.50.
Users praised the singer after he revealed the Ticketmaster refunds, with one saying: "You got my absolute respect. The first one to do it. My total admiration."
Ticketmaster didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.