The Cure played back – Newspaper Kommersant No. 54 (7499) dated 03/30/2023

British gothic rock band The Cure frontman Robert Smith has won the battle against “dynamic pricing” in the US ticket market. About a musician who thinks first of all about his fans, tells Igor Gavrilov.

One of the most talked about topics in the global concert and entertainment industry is The Cure frontman Robert Smith’s struggle for fair pricing in the concert industry. About how The Cure concerts look now, Kommersant wrote on November 12, 2022; The US leg of the band’s world tour is set to begin May 10 in New Orleans. But before going overseas, Robert Smith decided to deal with the numerous complaints from fans about the high cost of tickets.

The Cure frontman’s main opponent is ticket operator Ticketmaster. Since 2010, he has been performing in the music market in conjunction with one of the most influential promotional companies – Live Nation. Together they largely shape the touring market and set the rules of the game.

The “dynamic pricing” system practiced by American ticket operators led to scandals during the tour of Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift last year. A practice that has drawn Smith’s ire is that, under current market rules, Ticketmaster can raise ticket prices based on demand. The operator thus wanted to take away the super profits of speculator sites like Viagogo or Stubhub.

In 2022, episodes became public when Bruce Springsteen concert ticket prices reached $5,000. more than $1,000 to buyers, and the average ticket price was $262. Close attention to Springsteen is due not only to the fact that he is actually a national hero in the United States, but also to the fact that he has not toured with his E Street Band for a very long time. She is more than just an accompaniment. Suffice it to say that she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame separately from the leader. In early April, Springsteen will play in New York and his native New Jersey. Ticket prices for a concert at Madison Square Garden start at $300. Moreover, a quarter of this price is made up of various kinds of service fees and margins – that is, exactly what caused last year’s scandal. However, according to the musician, the prices for his shows have always been a little lower than those of fellow competitors, and now, when he is 73, he decided to even out the situation. In an interview with Rolling Stone last year, Springsteen succinctly summed up his attitude to rising ticket prices: “If you don’t like the show, we’ll refund your money.”

But even louder in the context of Ticketmaster politics was the name Taylor Swift. When the operator opened pre-sales of tickets for the singer’s upcoming tour in November 2022, the company’s website received hundreds of thousands of requests from buyers and collapsed. Ticketmaster was accused of having announced a pre-sale of expensive tickets for verified fans of the singer, the company simply launched all tickets at an inflated price in the online checkout. The word “Ticketmaster” became one of the most talked about tweets on social media, and the most talked about tweet was Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal to cancel the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger to end their monopoly.

And now Robert Smith had to literally fight on Twitter for his fans. Fans of The Cure paid attention on social networks to cases when the amount of fees turned out to be higher than the cost of the ticket. On the current tour, the band set themselves the goal of lowering the price of the cheapest ticket to $20, but in fact Ticketmaster added another $20 to it for all sorts of internal services. As in the case of Taylor Swift, the operator offered preferences for this amount to “verified fans” who wanted to purchase tickets first. The musician said on Twitter that he was “just as sick of high prices” as his listeners. And he promised to contact Ticketmaster directly.

The result was unexpected. Ticketmaster promised to refund some of the fees to fans who bought tickets for The Cure’s US tour. “Ticketmaster agreed with our view that many fees are unreasonably high,” Smith wrote, “and each of the verified fans who bought tickets at the lowest price will be refunded $10 by the operator.” For those who bought more expensive tickets, Ticketmaster will return $5 each, the musician said.

It’s worth noting here that Robert Smith has been a longtime opponent of giving away music and selling it on a pay-what-you-want basis. The leader of The Cure has been arguing for years with both music giants and colleagues like Radiohead, while pursuing the interests of both listeners and numerous musicians who are barely making ends meet due to the politics of streaming platforms. Maybe that’s why the fans have remained so devoted to The Cure for 35 years now, and the industry is reacting to his every word.