'Official Platinum Seats': How Ticketmaster Benefits From Sky-high ...

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Don’t put all the blame on scalpers for the limited availability and sky-high prices of tickets for the Tragically Hip’s upcoming tour: Ticketmaster and the band are getting a piece of the action, too.

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Fans scouring Ticketmaster for seats may have noticed an option called “official platinum seats.” The ticket seller markets them as “some of the best seats in the house,” but sells them at a significant markup to the face value of seats with similar views.

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On Wednesday, for example, Ticketmaster was offering platinum tickets for $1,150 for floor seats at the tour’s July 30 date in Edmonton. Floor seats sold for $116 to $166 the day tickets went on sale, making the platinum tickets up to 10 times more expensive.

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Luciana Brasil, a lawyer who represented plaintiffs in class action lawsuit over the inflated price of resale tickets in the late ’00s, said this practice is misleading, although not necessarily illegal. She noted Ticketmaster is careful to clarify the tickets are being sold for the first time out of a block set aside for artists and event promoters, preventing the company from running afoul of jurisdictions that ban the resale of tickets for more than their original price.

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“There’s nothing wrong with artists and promoters holding off some seats and eventually releasing them and charging more money for them, legally. The question is whether morally that makes sense,” she said. “Having announced the illness so close to the sale, it was clear that it was going to be a stampede to get tickets. So why was it necessary to set aside tickets and put them on sale for a higher price?” 

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In late May, the Canadian rock band announced lead singer Gordon Downie had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, making its upcoming “Man Machine Poem” tour the band’s last. Demand for tickets was overwhelming, with fans directing most of their ire towards scalpers when they found they were unable to get tickets for anything close to the original face value.

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1. How other musicians fight the price gouging affecting Tragically Hip tickets
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A representative of the Feldman Agency, an entertainment company that lists the Tragically Hip on its roster, declined to comment. Management and event production company Eggplant Entertainment Inc. did not respond to requests for comment.

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Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment Inc., declined to answer specific questions on the record about what percentage of tickets were sold as platinum seats and how the proceeds of their sales are distributed.

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Fans of the Hip expressed confusion about the platinum tickets online.

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“Does anyone have details on what deal is with the platinum seats for the upcoming Tragically Hip show?” wrote one poster on the online bulletin board Reddit. “I can’t find any info through Ticketmaster or the Google. Is it a VIP package?”

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