“Ticketmaster’s high priced Platinum tickets were introduced to the areas where scalpers were buying the most tickets for resale. The money went to me. That did not feel right,” singer writes
Neil Young has pledged to eliminate high-priced “platinum” tickets from his future tours, the singer announced Saturday.
Writing on his NY Archives site, Young said he was inspired by the Cure’s Robert Smith, a frequent critic of Ticketmaster’s “dynamic pricing” and “Platinum” offers — calling it “a “scam” that is “just driven by greed” — and sought to prevent the practice on the band’s Songs of a Lost World; Smith also successfully lobbied against exorbitant service fees on ticket purchases.
Young’s upcoming Love Earth Tour employed “Platinum” pricing — a method to dissuade scalpers from buying up premium tickets and selling them for more money on the secondary market, for their (and not the artists’) gain — but the singer wrote Saturday that “Platinum” tickets are “a bad thing” that won’t be in place on his future treks.
“My management and agent have always tried to cover my back on the road, getting me the best deals they could. They have tried to protect me and the fans from scalpers who buy the best tickets and resell them at huge increases for their own profits,” Young wrote.
“Ticketmaster’s high priced Platinum tickets were introduced to the areas where scalpers were buying the most tickets for resale. The money went to me. That did not feel right. Very soon, Platinum tickets will no longer be available for my shows.”
However, while Smith and the Cure ultimately combatted scalping by making their tickets non-transferable, it doesn’t appear Young will go that same route. (However, like the Cure, Young’s tickets will be available to resell at face value via Ticketmaster, though they could still command more on the secondary sites.)
“I have decided to let the people work this out,” Young added. “Buy aggressively when the tickets come out or tickets will cost a lot more in a secondary market.”
