Ticketmaster compensates fans for Bad Bunny gig entry chaos
Ticketmaster Mexico has issued refunds and compensation to Bad Bunny fans after more than 2,000 ticketholders were denied entry to a Mexico City concert last year.
Bad Bunny was performing at the Azteca Stadium on December 9 when thousands of fans with valid tickets were turned away. Ticketmaster said that it was due to failures in its ticket reading system [via IQ].
Ticketmaster Mexico was initially facing a fine of up to 10 per cent of its yearly revenue by the Mexican government. However, it has avoided being penalised due to refunding the affected customers the full price of the ticket plus 20 per cent compensation.
The total has amounted to nearly 18.2million pesos (£802,384). So far, 2,155 customers have received reimbursement and compensation.
The December 9 gig was the first of two dates at the venue by the Puerto Rican rapper.
Ticketmaster Mexico also cited “an unprecedented number of fake tickets”, with upwards of 4.5million people having registered for the 120,000 available tickets for the December shows.
For the second concert, federal consumer protection office PROFECO deployed a team of verifiers at the venue entrance in an bid to limit further issues.
A press release from Mexico’s Federal Consumer Attorney’s office reads: “Unlike the first show, access flowed without major problems and 110 consumers turned to Profeco because they could not enter.
“For its part, the Ticketmaster company reported at the time that there were a large number of tickets that were not purchased through official channels and/or legitimate tickets printed several times; that is, simple photocopies of the same ticket with which it was intended to enter the event. Due to these events, the company reported that it filed two complaints with the competent authorities.
“Ticketmaster also referred to failures in the scanning equipment given the high concentration of mobile devices; the signal degraded intermittently, causing ticket reading to stall on devices while offline and to break out when handhelds were reconnected, resulting in valid tickets not being read correctly.”
The fiasco led to Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador calling on the rapper to play a free show in the city’s Zócalo square, saying that the government would offer to cover some production costs for such a show.
Ticketmaster also came under fire recently for its handling of the ticketing for Taylor Swift’s North American ‘The Eras’ tour. Many customers trying to buy tickets in the pre-sale encountered technical issues, including website outages and lengthy wait times.
In other news, Bad Bunny is reportedly being sued by his ex-girlfriend for the alleged unauthorised use of one of her voice recordings in his music.
The post Ticketmaster compensates fans for Bad Bunny gig entry chaos appeared first on NME.
Charlotte Krol
NME
